


The Journal of Erend Blazinghelm

by McBeard_Creative



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Diary/Journal, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Gen, Original DnD Campaign
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2020-01-16 04:24:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 45
Words: 99,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McBeard_Creative/pseuds/McBeard_Creative
Summary: This is the journal of Erend Blazinghelm, dwarven cleric of Mitra the Fire Undying, and his adventures and misadventures after being designated a champion of his god by someone who may or may not have been an angel.Sessions are typically played biweekly. I'll be trying to get the journals up with roughly that frequency, but due to to work/life/etc and the substantial backlog of them to get through (must obsessively revise before posting) it may be more or less frequent.To find out who Erend is, see his backstory writeuphere





	1. Someone Once Told Me I Should Keep a Journal of My Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erend decides he should start keeping a journal, and catalogs the events that led him to where he lays his head down tonight.

_Erast. 26, 1707 (RW 10/28/2018 thru 12/23/2018):_

Someone told me once I should keep a journal of my life. At the time it seemed like the idle musings of an old man, but then so do a lot of things when you’re 20 years old and you’ve never set foot outside your home. It didn’t really occur to then how it might benefit me to arrange my thoughts and record them for posterity. To look back on it now with a few more decades behind me, it’s obvious why someone who spent most of his time thinking about fighting, fucking, and carrying out “holy crusades of justice against the wicked of the world” - as if it were so simple - would think that. To be sure I still like to fight and fuck, and burning evil from the world may be my favorite activity of all, but with another 40 years of life behind me and more than half of that spent itinerant, I understand. True the majority of my time since I left home has been nothing that’s likely to be of much interest to anyone but the most enthusiastic of historians (and that assuming that my life is actually of enough note to be interesting to historians at all), but after the events of the past couple months, I not only feel the need to arrange my thoughts, I feel I may be doing a disservice to future generations if I don’t do so.

This current… I guess I’d call it an adventure - Started while we were making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Mitra outside of Witry with the local lord Mikael Delphaus - About a month ago. I fell in with him maybe a year prior after making my way to the town of Witry. He was/is a paladin of Mitra the Shining Lord, serving in local government rather than on the battlefield to guide people towards justice and prosperity. He wanted help deciphering some old dwarven writings on the nature of Mitra, and offered me free room and board for my assistance. I was aware that I might be doing more good in the world if I continued travelling, but something drew me to stay. Besides, I’d not stayed in one place longer than a couple weeks for more than 5 years at that point and the traveller’s life was beginning to grow old. There’s really something to be said about having a place to come home to, especially when held up against the prospect of freezing your ass off out on the road during the approaching winter, but I digress. Delphaus turned out to be a pretty decent man, a little light racism notwithstanding which I made it a personal focus of mine to drill out of him. I don’t know if I actually changed his mind or if he just learned better than to make certain comments around me, but mindfulness is the first step to change and so either way it’s some sort of win. He was set to marry the sorceress Aliss, eldest daughter of house Istarra, and it was a blessing on their wedding we sought at the shrine that day.

There was a skirmish on the way where we saved a dwarven man heading to the shrine for his own reasons. He was beset by two juvenile cockatrice. We made short work of the beasts but the fellow declined to accompany us the rest of the way. When we arrived, a woman looking for all the world like an angel barred our entrance and told us we had been chosen by Mitra himself to perform important work in his name… and that’s all she told us. It was then as well that this mark (see margin) burned itself into the hands of everyone present. It hurt, but as it’s quite literally impossible to learn the wielding of divine flames well enough to fight with them and yet avoid burning yourself repeatedly, it was an old familiar pain to me. This is why the first magic we clerics learn is how to heal, not how to light shit on fire. And it’s good to have some practice focussing on a healing spell when you’re in searing agony.

The angel quickly departed and we went inside to receive the blessing. Delphaus left immediately afterwards, seeming distracted and saying he’d seen the symbol now scarred into his hand in a book somewhere, that he needed to get back to his library. We would have been right behind him, but a door in the back caught my eye. This was after all one of the oldest Mitran shrines in Etrela, it’s possible there was some reason the angel appeared here, maybe some sort of clue in the catacombs, something. It seemed worth investigating.

I should probably mention our party composition at this point. We had (have, this hasn’t changed thus far) a foursome that I’ve been puzzling over since that day and haven’t yet figured out. There’s Khauldera, a human women who doesn’t look all that dangerous at first glance, but upon closer inspection is seemingly built out of corded steel. She grew up with a barbarian tribe who taught her to fight, has a breathtaking temper that she can seemingly turn on and off at will, and yet is usually a the most rational and compassionate of the 3. Morgrym on the other hand is a dwarf who abandoned his home with little more than an axe and bow after realizing that most of the work he put in on a daily basis went to fatten and gild his royal family while he and his kin subsisted on barely adequate rations. I can’t say I necessarily disagree with his sentiment, but his hedonistic nature could do with tempering, and he could do to learn some respect for…. Anything other than himself. At least HE has a self preservation instinct, which bring me to Pash. Pash is a ratfolk who must have a silver tongue I’ve yet to hear, because I’ve wanted to stab him myself already, despite having only recently met him. I have no idea how he hasn’t been killed by now, either for simply insulting the wrong person or as punishment for some crime. He has no sense of social decorum (or just doesn’t care), seemingly no sense of self-preservation, and a very slippery grasp on the concept of personal hygiene, which is hilarious when considering the fact that he also tries to fuck every female he meets like he’s in some sort of competition with Morgrym. Thing is, Morgrym could reasonably be found desirable. The rat also seems to have a weird fixation with pissing on things which….. I don’t even want to know. He likes to sneak around and try to stab opponents in the back with his daggers, which he’s frankly not very good at (getting better, still not great), and usually just ends up bleeding and in need of healing. Almost makes you wonder if he has a pain fetish too. And I’ve seen his tiny hairy cock more times by now than any person really ever needed to.

Going back to the door then: It was locked. Rather than entertain any notion of finding a key, Morgrym decided to simply bust through it with his axe, because why shouldn’t be vandalize an ancient holy shrine? This did enhance the humor though when several minutes later his hastiness got him shot in the ass by an arrow trap. I reached out with my own senses as we navigated the catacombs and managed to detect several reanimated human skeletons waiting in ambush, which we made short work of before the other dwarf and the rat decided to loot every coffin and niche in the place, a pattern that persisted through every room until the end as they ignored my request that they please have some measure of respect for the honored dead in this sacred place. Of note is the crossbow found by Morgrym, heretoafter referred to as M in this journal. The old piece was of notable quality and bore a sigil similar to that of house Istarra on it. He seemed pleased with himself. At the end of the catacombs we found larger group of skeletons and one that was better armed and armored. They were still not difficult to put down, and when they were (re)dead I was able to locate an illusory wall, which presented us with a simple riddle to solve. Pouring water on the wall revealed an ancient statue of Mitra, likely the original from when this shrine was built. There was some gold to be had, entirely split between Khauldera, heretoafter referred to as K, and myself as we felt the other two should be happy with the proceeds of their grave-robbing. 

We slept overnight in the main chamber of the shrine and I tended to wounds. As we were leaving, we met the dwarf from the day before, who presented us with an egg, seemingly of a duck but blue in color, and with a definite magical aura. Nobody could make heads or tails of it so we set back to the city, fighting another cockatrice on the way. As we were walking into town a local silversmith flagged us down looking for help in his mine, which seemed to be making people disappear. We promised to investigate if at all possible. We continued on to a Dr Mistletoe at the university who agreed to watch the egg for as long as we’d like. He mostly just came off as eager for the opportunity to study it. I’ve always respected pure academic interest like that, though his general demeanor could have used work. 

It was too late in the day to set out to the mine, so we went to the pub instead and checked the help wanted board for anything else we might do to earn some extra coin. There was a notice from a boy who had been expecting a shipment of medicine for his ailing grandmother, and we had a chuckle at an advertisement for a pyramid scheme. We had already made a commitment to the silversmith but we resolved to check in with the boy as soon as possible. We headed to the mine the next day, investigated and found a group of gnolls which we hastily exterminated. I identified a chunk of lucid stone in the cave, a material known for its ability to bolster the bearer’s resistance to illusory magic. The effect has an upper limit based on the quality of the material. I’d say this piece could reasonably be split over 3 people without losing any effectiveness, but that would require an artisan capable of working with the material. Such craftsmen expect payment for their work and expertise doesn’t come cheap, so for the time being I just pocketed it. The smith didn’t have much money to give, but he offered to make us some new weapons. I requested a quiver of silver tipped crossbow bolts. Handy things to have when you need them, though to be fair fire often does just as well. 

When we got back to our quarters in Delphaus’s manor, we were greeted by a messenger saying he had urgent news. Turns out the place he’d seen the mark before wasn’t in a book at all, but in a recent letter from the relatively nearby logging town of Maselworth. Creatures were attacking the town very night, and they bore this same mark. He requested we go investigate while he stayed at home and continued searching his books for any other useful information. We agreed to do this after we helped the boy and his grandmother.

We spoke with the boy the next morning who showed us his grandmother, who made a lovely statue, having been turned to stone. I’d heard of this sort of thing before, but I couldn’t pinpoint the cause. It’s definitely not my area of expertise. The kid knew what town the medicine merchant was supposed to be coming from, so we headed in that direction. We located him not too far out. He’d presumably been running late, and then been captured by some manner of ogroids who as we arrived had him trussed up about to be cooked for dinner. We killed them without any fuss, and offered to escort him into town. He was pretty shaken, so after a brief conversation he simply gave us the medicine (which he had been prepaid for), and some fine dwarven cigars like I haven’t smoked in 20 years. We applied the medication to the old woman and after witnessing her full recovery, we learned that she wasn’t the first to end up like this. After initially suspecting a statue merchant in the market of these attacks, we eventually located the basilisk responsible and caught it sleeping in the sewers with the help of some resident kobolds. Sold the corpse for a damn fine price after some haggling at the local alchemist shop and ate well that night. M finally convinced a women he had been trying to woo for the last several nights to bed him.

The next morning M discovered he’d been robbed of his crossbow in the night, which was frankly hilarious to me and everyone else, but we agreed to help him recover it if it didn’t take us too far out of our way. A maid stopped by our quarters before we left for the day to give us some items that had been dropped off by a foul smelling kobold as thanks for helping them rid the sewer of the basilisk. I set off with K to go about getting us a carriage and some horses, along with other supplies we would need for the road. We also engaged a courier service to pick up our weapons from the blacksmith and deliver them to Maselworth in a few days time when they were completed. Pash (P) and M decided to take a look at a local shop selling enchanted weapons at discount prices (which sounds like just a great idea) for information and potentially new armaments. P and M returned with a story involving nudity - because of course - and a magic dagger that P had acquired (the damn thing has a fumbled disarming spell on it - which is to say it disarms the wielder rather than the target). P spent a week trying to figure out how to use it and then gave up. They did find some information on the thief though, a Liandra Blackettle, and they found that she had set off in the same direction as Maselworth. Thus we departed.

The journey was odd if not dangerous. We came across a young girl taking pigs to market to pay for the repair of her parent’s house, and we bought several of these at a very high price to allow her to return home, because a child that young should not be travelling these roads unguarded. We passed through a town filled with animals who seemed to be polymorphed humans, the whole town being under the influence of an impressively powerful spell allowing all beings to share speech with one another. We encountered a goblin encampment and rescued a turtle who turned out to be a dwarf fleeing her former lover from the animal town. I managed to hit a goblin so hard in the head with my hammer that I for all intents and purposes decapitated him and sent his body sailing through the nearby tent, after which his companions seemed to lose the will to fight. That one’s going in my story repertoire. 

We camped just outside Masalworth before heading in bright and early in the morning and speaking with the interim mayor - the old one having been killed in the attacks. She was a sturdy half-orc, somewhat practiced in magic, and wanting to do best by her town but way out of her depth. Can’t blame her for that. We scouted around for more info, found out these creatures attack most frequently in the town square, and they seem to be wolf-like in form. Lycanthropes, best guess. We were delayed enough in getting here that our silver weapons had already arrived by this point so we went and collected them. We decided to use K as bait in the square while the rest of us posted up on the surrounding rooftops with silver ammunition in our crossbows. I posted with P and ran a rope to the ground in case we needed to get down swiftly. M posted on another building.

All of this tactical positioning was ultimately pointless as when the attack came, the darkness was so absolute you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and I say that as someone who’s naturally endowed with excellent night vision. Magic. On top of the supernatural darkness I was also able to detect the fact we had been pulled into a mindscape. M also saw through the illusion, and together we pointed Pash to the failsafe exit. since he’s not much good in a straight fight anyways. The rest of us just had to survive while he ran for it. I rapelled down into the square and summoned a torchflame into my hand to drive back enough darkness that I could at least see. Khauldera, despite being essentially blind, still managed to gut one of the beasts and join me. Morgrym, after falling gracelessly from the roof due to what I’ll charitably call a critical lack of foresight, joined us and we were able to hold them off long enough for P to get out and - due to a timeflow differential between the real world and the mindscape - get to the mayor, have her fail to cast dispel off of some scrolls now that we knew what we were dealing with, take those same scrolls to the local fortune teller (a Madame Fiona), have her succeed, and then dump the rest of us back in the town square proper just in time to see the temple I had prayed at not 24 hours ago utterly destroyed as the ground broke apart and a massive black tower jutted itself skyward. Some asshole on the balcony then proceeded to identify us as agents of Mitra and taunt us that he had no power here. Easy to say to a group of tired fighters from hundreds of feet away and 5 stories up. In spite of the taunt and our apparent lack of power, I was able to knit my party’s wounds using magic, after which we had a brief conversation with the mayor, promised to deal with the tower in the morning, and went to bed.

The next morning we went to investigate, found there was a gaping and apparently bottomless chasm between solid ground and the tower door. Masalworth is a logging town, so we went and acquired some recently harvested trees and made ourselves a simple bridge. There was a symbol on the doorway that we had to trace over, possibly responding to the mark on our hands, and we quickly gained entrance. What we found inside looked like a wreck of a basement that hadn’t been properly tended in years. We spent the next several days delving into it, mapping it out, and killing anything hostile - which is to say everything. There was some sort of bioluminescent purple fungus in clusters around the place and a large beast either partly taken over by it or producing it. The room was rigged to trap us in with it, and while we obviously triumphed, it afflicted several of us with a rotting disease that I didn’t have the magical capacity to cure, forcing us to acquire potions from a local shop. That’s a different story that I’ll double back to in my next paragraph. We encountered a second one of these beasts, but it was at the end of a long hallway and we were able to burn and perforate it at a distance with magic and arrows. Except for P of course that tried to stab it and got infected with the rotting sickness for his hubris. Apart from that, the floor had housed dire wolves, several actual lycanthropes, one cultist who I understand now may have just been down to do some maintenance or fetch something, and a janitor cube that had to be disposed of after nearly suffocating ¾ of our group. There was a ruin of confusion that I managed to avoid getting duped by, and which we later chipped out of the wall with a crowbar for potential later use. We located a heavily damaged and desecrated statue of Mitra standing alone in a room seemingly built just for this purpose. We also found a staircase but resolved to clear out the lower floor and if at all possible restore the statue before venturing upward. This I was able to do with Magic, however it took several days due to the need to overcome the malevolent divine magics saturating it.

Now, the potion shop. After getting inflicted with this horrific rotting disease that I couldn’t cure, we went to this shop run by a female gnome by the name of Almas. We were able to negotiate a price for all of the Remove Disease potions she had, knocking two back immediately and stowing the 3rd just in case. Before arriving at the shop I had noticed that Pash split off from the group. I assumed he had something else to take care of and thought nothing of it. What I later learned is that he had been in her bedroom in the back of the shop stealing both potions and undergarments. He did this swiftly and quietly and rejoined us through the front door in time to flirt with the gnome, which she seemed shockingly open to. We left, went to the tavern, went about our business of getting food and drink (pretty sure M ended up in a night of alcohol fueled debauchery with a local couple - not that I’m judging all that much). P later came to me and presented me with these potions he had stolen, mumbling some bullshit about having found them… I should have asked more questions. That was my mistake. I was able to identify one as a Blur potion and gave it to K to use, and I returned the others to him for the time being. I later found out he returned to the potion shop in the evening as she had bid him to, was soundly rejected due to his atrocious smell (she hadn’t wanted to make a scene of it earlier in front of people), and proceeded to rob her a second time. She didn’t see this thievery take place, but 2+2 equals 4 and when things goes missing you first turn to the seedy looking newcomer who had motive and opportunity.

The next day as we exited the tower after clearing off the first floor and resolving to move onto the second tomorrow, we were confronted by a party of 6 unhappy dwarves and half-orcs, led by Aloriac. Aloriac was the self-proclaimed leader of the town’s makeshift militia/guard in these troubled times. While that sounds like a recipe for trouble, I never read the man as anything but an honest person who stepped up to take hold of a leadership role in a time of chaos in order to prevent a more unsavory sort from doing in. This group quite reasonably pegged us as the thieves of the missing potions (enough to easily bankrupt her shop). At this confirmation that they were stolen and being both unwilling to murder innocents and/or die for petty thievery we handed over what we had and pointed them to Pash. I requested that they simply not kill him (chosen of Mitra and all that), but that I wouldn’t stop them from applying judicious beatings as they saw fit. They said they would let him go if he simply returned what was stolen, having no taste for further bloodshed. He instead denied his thievery, tried to slip them into Khauldera’s bag, fumbled one and dropped it, and only then when he was good and thoroughly caught handed them over. The group departed and he tried to follow them, to which K responded by grabbing his tail, which he countered by chewing it off and following them anyways.

The rest of us agreed that he’ll suffer the consequences of his actions, our care for him well and truly exhausted by this point. We went to the Emerald Doe (local tavern), M and I got into a drinking game with some locals, which we soundly lost at, and K struck up a conversation with a Tiefling who was carrying a large harp. I don’t know what P was getting up to during this time except that he briefly walked through the tavern trailed shortly by two guardsmen, but he rejoined us the next morning and we ventured back into the tower. It was this day that I was able to complete the restoration of the statue, and we felt a wave of gratitude wash over us. 

The second level appeared to be lived in, something supported by the first room we encountered being a communal bedchamber. We located two more individuals, which were surprisingly not immediately hostile. We managed to have a brief conversation where we learned that this was a temple of Jezelda, a goddess of the moon, and the facilities here were specifically designed to the purpose of researching lycanthropy, not to find a cure but to find better ways to spread it, among other things. We suspected there were more people on this floor. I detected a strong magical aura coming from nearby, but I couldn’t see where so we resolved to be careful. We crept around, located a lab with some vial of blood and a lot of books, almost all of which we inadvertently ruined after someone lit themselves on fire and I had to throw water on the flames. The lab housed another janitor cube which we left alone at the urging of K. I did recover a ceremonial looking dagger that still had dried blood encrusted on the blade, and M found a journal that I would guess contained lab notes, but was magically sealed. I can probably work my way into it. Exploring the floor further we unlocked a door that proved to have a Doppelganger trapped behind it, which was just wonderful. It attempted to assume to form of K. Succeeded, in fact, but as it couldn’t speak Dwarven and 3 of us could, including her, the trick was not very useful. Especially once we put a gaping wound in its gut. It wasn’t a very long fight, but it traumatized her. I imagine having to seemingly hack yourself apart is not an easy psychological burden to bear.

We decided to stay in the tower that night, and I relented on my previous refusal to heal P’s entirely self-inflicted wounds. My earlier refusal may have been petty, but then again I know places where they would have had his head for what he did. He got off light. We guarded the door to the rest of the floor in shifts in case of any other inhabitants returning. A wise choice. Halfway through the night, someone came ambling in and the guard on duty caught him in ambush, but not well enough to kill him immediately. He called for help, which drew in two more people. It wasn’t much of a fight. The next morning the only path left to us was towards the magic aura. It wasn’t more than a couple minute’s walk and a locked door away. After taking a more thorough examination of it, I determined it to be another mindscape. I made a reasonable assumption that my willpower, combined with my knowledge of the mindscape’s existence and further bolstered by the lucid stone I carried would be enough to resist this magic. I had P pick the lock and went in alone. I was right. It took several hours to sweep the room and locate the source of the magic, which was a crystal hidden behind a storage chest. I smashed it, felt the magic dispel, and beckoned my companions forth.

The room was an armory of sorts, best we could tell. There were gold and jewels in the chest, and a few weapon racks along the walls. I went over to one and my eye was caught by a hammer. Intricately wrought with decorative engravings covering nearly every surface but the striking face itself. I picked it up and it spoke to me. Not metaphorically, literally. The hammer talked. Sixty years old and I’ve seen a lot of things, but this one caught me off guard. I’d heard of this sort of thing before. Normally inanimate objects imbued with sentience through magical means. It’s massively complicated and takes an incredible amount of power to pull off. Even more so I imagine when it’s a human soul bonded into the item, as is apparently the case here.

The hammer told me her name was Calista, which I recognized. She was a sorceress from 2000 years ago who fought side-by-side with Mitra himself. She was renowned particularly for her ability to disrupt and dispel magic. The end of her life was never specified in the history books. She told me she had been in this tower with Mitra and he was the one that had placed her into the hammer. She wouldn’t say more than that. I got the distinct impression that she’d been bored out of her mind for the last 2000 year with nobody to talk to (speaking up to the cultists of Jezelda seeming like a rather poor idea). She was eager to be taken out of this place and to be able to serve once again. I also got the distinct impression she thinks she’s better than all of us which - well I don’t know how much I can blame her for that when reviewing our retinue, and I may have made some crass remarks (not directed at her) that didn’t give her the best opening impression of me either…. - but superior attitudes wear thin very quickly so I’m going to be attempting to smooth things over and establish a good, respectful working relationship between us.

Calista’s power was not left behind when her soul was bound to the hammer, and I’ve found she not only still possesses the ability to dispel powerful magical fields, but is also able to cast pretty potent identification spells. Not as versatile a repertoire as she probably had when she was human, but it will surely prove useful in our journey. I know also that intelligent objects are usually capable of domineering weaker minded individuals entirely, and it stands to reason that she's probably better at this than most, given her origin. She’s made offhand comments that hint at a much more powerful magical ability as well, but that she would only use in accordance with her sacred mission. What that mission is, she also declined to tell me. Maybe eventually. She did tell me that they (she and Mitra) had built this tower and sent it underground in the first place. I wonder why I never read about that one in all my studies of history, particularly as they pertained to the entire history of Mitra as he walked the corporeal plane.. I need to hit some books next time we get to a city with a larger temple and see what I can find. 

Through that room there was another room, this one with another defiled statue of Mitra. This one too was saturated with malevolent power, but Calista was able to dispel it in one mighty burst, and I was able to much more easily restore the stone to its original form as a result. We poked ahead further and found a staircase going up to the next floor, but as it was already later in the day we decided to turn in for the night in the same barracks as the night before. Since it was a bit early I figured I’d get a start on this journal thing, and here we are. I’m going to be trying to fill these out more often, maybe including a bit more detail on events, definitely including a better recollection if nothing else. Wonder what we find tomorrow.


	2. Upstream on the River and Through the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party is pulled from their mission in the tower of evil to attend a wedding, of all things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next several follow the party through a slightly modified version of Realm of the Fellnight Queen.

_Arodus 6, 1707 (RW: 12/29/2018):_

Seems we never get a moment of peace. Even when we’re camping in hostile territory, prepared for anything, we get hit with something unexpected. Here it was in the form of a heavily armored half-orc named Rinpar, who had been sent by Delphaus to bid us attend the wedding of a childhood friend of his by the name of Bellis (the chief city counselor of Nyuyota) in his stead. Bellis was to wed Kailah, daughter of a prominent local alchemist, in a week’s time. 

Yes, a wedding. This was so very important we needed to abandon our attempts to conquer this ominous black tower that had desecrated a temple in a town recently plagued by monstrous nighttime attacks. It seemed absurd, but then I could shake the niggling feeling that it was where we were needed more, as ridiculous as that seems. I’ve learned to trust that intuition, so we went. Delphaus had included a sizable sum of gold for the purchase of a gift and suitable formal vestments. This was all over a week ago at this point as this is the first chance I’ve had to properly sit down and write.

We visited a tailor in town and commissioned her on a rush job to make us some clothing that would fit over our armor, even conceal weapons in some cases. We’d all been in too many fights recently to feel comfortable going unarmed and unarmored. She was able to oblige us, apart from Rinpar - there’s really no hiding full plate armor under fancy clothes. We decided he would just go as our escort. I myself ended up with a brilliant shirt and trousers stitched in red and gold fabric that evoked images of flame, and some very fine jeweled beard clips. It’s been a long time since I had any reason to dress up fancy. I have to say I do clean up pretty decent. 

Over at a local artisan shop we found small selection of fine items to use as gifts and decided on a few, bee themed as honeybees are what Nyuyota is known for. We even acquired a small amount of a local craft brew from the Emerald Doe tavern. Unique is good, especially for people that probably have just about everything they could reasonably want or need. As we were discussing transport, the tiefling that Khauldera had spoken to several nights ago in the tavern approached us, saying his cards (tarot) had told him to leave with us. It was a faster journey by river (the Sellen), and he happened to have a suitable boat. Sure, it makes as much sense as anything. I spoke with the mayor about the tower, told her we would be back as soon as at all possible, but encouraged her to keep the repeating crossbows she had set up trained on the tower and if at all possible get more. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to harm anything that comes out, but something is better than nothing.

The next morning we collected our things from the tailor, Rinpar (R) made sure his horse was well-stabled and paid up for several weeks, and headed for the docks. He wasn’t happy about leaving that horse. He’s very close to it, and I know he prefers to fight astride. At the river the tiefling (Alric) removed a small toy boat from his pocket and set it into the river, whereupon it immediately transformed into an actual single masted boat large enough to hold our entire company with even a little room to spare. He explained that his father was a an enchanter and made items like this for fun. Alric stole is when he was “asked” to leave home during adolescence because of his developing demonic characteristics. His parents being high elves, such a thing would have caused them great social distress, you see.

The majority of the trip was uneventful, but right in the middle we got gobsmacked by a water elemental guarding a pale gnome encampment that we could see through the trees on the bank. After several of our people nearly drowning (thank god we had plenty of rope and a mast to tie it to), and several rounds of blows traded with the thing, it seemed to back off and reconsider the fight. Looking back, it seemed anguished the whole time like it really didn’t want to be fighting us. Maybe it realized we weren’t a threat if simply allowed to pass through, maybe its masters did and didn’t want to lose their guardian. In any case it backed off to a less threatening and more defensive position and allowed us to recover our overboard party members and continue on up the river.

We arrived in Nyuyota on time and acquired lodging where we could store our belongings for the night. I went to the temple to pray and meditate for a while, and when a priest came by I had a wild notion and asked him about a small stone idol we’d found in the tower of Jezelda. He didn’t recognize it. I had another thought and asked Calista. She didn’t recognize it either, but the priest thought I was properly crazy when I asked my warhammer a question, then he thought he might be properly crazy when she responded. Oh well, worth a try. My praying done, I went to the brothel.

The next evening was the wedding, which we attended in our armor concealing finery. There was to be a social gathering and then the wedding ceremony proper. I smuggled Calista in near the beginning of the gathering and placed her in some bushes very near the pews where I would be sitting. She wasn’t happy with this arrangement, but I assured her I would never be more than 30 seconds away, I would keep the bush in sight at all times, and reminded her that she could likely mindfuck just about anyone who would try to kidnap/steal (I’m not really sure the proper word in this case) her anyways. In any case, It wouldn’t be good form to show up to a wedding wielding a warhammer. Khauldera had managed to get a dress working in such a way that her sword was actually down her back. That can’t have been comfortable; must have been biting into her ass cheeks unless she had some sort of special sheath made, and I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when that conversation was going on. P had his daggers on him of course, easy to conceal, and M left his axe in the bush with Calista. With the matter of the weapons settled we mingled about the party, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.

 

I went over to talk with the bride and groom, introduced myself, and shared a few of the cigars we’d gotten several weeks back. The others busied themselves in various manners. Pash and Morgrym noticed a pale gnome who seemed very eager to win a particular pie (silent auction, box social) that would have granted him an audience with Lilia, a close friend of the bride. He had been a champion beekeeper until he lost a contest to Bellis and had apparently been bitter and withdrawn ever since. Sore losers aren’t necessarily evil or dangerous of course, but he did seem awfully determined to win that pie. M made a concerted effort to outbid him and he eventually gave up and disappeared.

There were no incidents for the rest of the party. The ceremony went well and was quite nice until shortly after the vows were exchanged, when some people began noticing a rising sound behind the gazebo. It got louder until it was close enough we could identify the source as 2 swarms of giant bees, approaching fast. People started running, some dunked themselves in the creek, some hid in the tents, I reached out and felt that they were being controlled somehow, made to swarm and aggressively attack the wedding. There was an intelligence in the swarm. I was already running to grab my hammer. I waited until they were near and had Calista dispel the magic driving them, which didn’t do nearly as much as I’d hoped, since the swarms stayed coherent, stayed aggressive, stayed at the wedding. Swinging conventional weapons at them was all but useless. I toasted a fair portion of them with a blast of fire but it wasn’t enough. What ended up working was luring them into the pie tent, collapsing it, and setting it ablaze on top of them.

Before we had a chance to catch our breath, the bride and groom were cordoned off by thickly tangled thorns as three spriggans came sprinting in. P got behind one and carved him up a bit and K finished the job expertly, but the other two vanished into bushes, which we promptly burned to no avail. Goddamned tree stride……

Screams alerted us that they were in the tangle that held the bride and groom prisoner. We hurried over but the thorns were incredibly dense and attempts to force our way through proved fruitless. I was hesitant to use fire because I didn’t want to roast all parties inside. K put P up on her shield and vaulted him over the top of the wall. He was able to stall the spriggans, but it wasn’t a fight he was going to win in the long run. I had no choice but to burn a path through, which mercifully didn’t light the whole damn thing on fire. We made short work of them in an enclosed space. After making sure the couple was not critically wounded, I bellowed for everyone who had suffered injuries to gather round, and channelled a torrent of holy energy to knit flesh and purge poison. We heard Tenzakill’s voice screeching about how the way has been paved for queen Rhoswen and he’ll have the last laugh. With that a deep fog rolled over the town and he was gone.

We got to speaking with the bride and groom and they promised us whatever resources the town could provide to go after Tenzakill. They dispatched messengers to the local magic shops, alchemists, and armorrers with notices that the city would reimburse any supplies they could provide us. They also told us there was a druid in the Brecon Woods that may be able to tell us more, so we resolved to head that direction in the morning. We visited several shops. I stocked up on whatever magic scrolls I would be able to use. Most of their selection was arcane, which does me no good. What I took were mostly healing spells, a few flame spells. The other folks found some strength potions they figured would make it easier to deal with bramble if it came up again. The choice finds were a couple enchanted accessories at Low’s (a regional competitor to Gnome Depot). A ring of wisdom and a belt of strength. I took the former, which should help me put a little more power behind my spells. I gave the latter to K, which should help her put a little more power behind her sword - a frightening proposition that. 

Headed out in the morning, travelled for the day. The fog was omnipresent, but several among us were experienced in travelling in the wilderness, so we didn’t have trouble keeping our direction. Alric continued to accompany us. As we made camp the first night a Dryad came stumbling out of the woods, told us spriggans were slaughtering her and her sisters, and died at our feet. Absent any physical wounds or detectable magical injury, the only conclusion to be drawn was that her tree had been destroyed. We packed up camp and headed in the direction she came from which was the direction we were headed anyways, and before long came upon a clearing with the remains of several other dryads - one still living - an unconscious unicorn, and 4 spriggans. We held briefly on the edge of the clearing to survey the situation, and what we saw lit me into a cold fury. The still living dryad was being taunted with crude carvings of her sisters, presumably wrought out of their own trees. The cruelty staggered me.

We had P sneak into the camp and prepare to strike at one of the torturers. When he was in place, M and R charged the other one, K rushed the one nearest us, and I walked over to the one in the back of the camp, dropping Calista into a striking grip as I did and and casting a simple spell on my target to make him feel at least some modicum of the fear and horror he had inflicted before I killed him. Half of the spriggans were dead before they had a chance to react. My target actually lived, albeit with a shattered sternum. I stabilized him with another simple spell and we interrogated him. He spouted more about Rhoswen coming and how they were clearing the way for her. Not sure why this required torture. We ultimately got no useful information. Rinpar executed him, and we moved on to the unicorn and remaining Dryad. I healed them, the unicorn promised to repay the favor and left, and the dryad offered us some jewels he had acquired over the years and some dust of dryness, something I’ve been eager to try since I first learned of its existence. Payment wasn’t necessary of course, but I have a feeling we’re going to need to spend a lot of money on a lot of things before this journey is over, so I didn't protest much. He also presented us with a flower possessing the ability to dispel magical fields, which he told us would be necessary to locate the druid. He told us we would find a fey mound with a powerful illusory spell over it. With that settled we remade camp, making use of the sprigan’s campfire so conveniently no longer in use.

We were awoken by a drunken treeant stumbling into our camp and threatening us. Drunkenness is just a mild form of poisoning, and poisoning I know how to deal with, so I suppressed its effects and got him to speak to us. His name was Vinroot, he didn’t have a lot of useful information and he wasn’t willing to come with us, saying something about staying here and standing guard. He gave us a gourd of nordrim, which I’m not entirely sure won’t kill us if we drink it. We promised to bring him some water if/when we came back this way. Another day’s travel had us at the base of what we believed to be the fey mound the dryad had told us about. We camped for the night and dispelled the illusion in the morning using the flower we’d been given. This revealed three large monoliths imbued with powerful magical energy and each representing three different planes. Best guess they were use for planar travel, but at the moment it wasn’t our focus. We could see a cabin in the distance which we took as our destination.

Between the mound and the cabin, half the party fell into a pit trap in the ground. It was deep, and there were injuries, nothing I couldn’t heal. There was a skeleton in the pit, not humanoid, canine. A wolf judging by the size. The folks up on the ground tied some more rope to a nearby tree and we climbed out.

When we knocked at the door there was no answer, but it wasn’t locked either so we slowly pushed it open and poked a head inside. We saw who we presumed to be the druid sitting in the corner. We had a short unproductive conversation, where we speculated that the wolf had been his familiar, which he showed virtually no reaction to (highly suspicious), then attacked us. As we were surrounding him in a corner, what followed was a substantial beating. When he was badly injured, a will o’wisp (explains the odd behavior) steamed out of one of his wounds and made for the door, but Alric caught the door and all three windows with some minor telekinesis and we finished the thing off. Bastards to fight. all but immune to magic and fast too, but it was an small enclosed space and there were 6 of us. We had its number from the start.

After the malignant spirit was dead, we tended to Devarre (the druid). He communed with nature and told us the mist and the magic flowing into the woods looked to be emanating from a series of waterfalls called Dead Man’s Drop, some further distance into the woods. We invited him to accompany us, but weakened as he was and mourning the loss of his familiar, he declined. He invited us to stay the night however, and partake of his food. I made an…. Edible stew. Cooking was never one of my strong suits, not sure what I was thinking. All said I’m glad for the respite and the chance to sit at a table and update this journal, as it’s been some time since I had the chance and it may well be again.


	3. Waterfalls and War Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After locating the source of the mysterious mist and escaping an ambush, the party plans for an assault.

_Arodus 8, 1707 (RW: 1/06/2019):_

Turns out it wasn’t long at all, but what a time the last 48 hours have been. We departed the next morning as planned. The closer we got to the waterfalls, the thicker the fog got, but we made it to the base of the waterfall. The path up was treacherous, so we sent a sure-footed scout with a rope, and then using that, we were all able to make the climb without injury. On arriving at the top we found a relatively calm pool of water and I was able to locate the a powerful magical aura underneath it, but this was guarded by two more large water elementals. I’m starting to hate water elementals. Well at least we weren’t on a boat this time.

We fought and killed them. The fight was something of a shitshow. Khauldera’s sword flew out of her hands and to the bottom of the pool. Pash, realizing he had very little to offer in this fight, tried to drink one of the elementals which led to a prodigious amount of vomiting. I’m not really sure what was going through his head, but at least he didn’t try to piss on it. Rinpar and Morgrym just tried swinging and shooting at the things, but again, water elementals. Alric played us an inspiring tune. I used my recently acquired dust of dryness on one of the elementals which didn’t kill it outright but severely injured it by sucking a great deal of it’s form into a tiny pearl that sank to the bottom of the pool. Then I stepped back away from the waterline and summoned a fire elemental behind them. Split their attention, worked pretty well. 

Once they were dead K, being the best swimmer among us, dove down to retrieve her sword and my water pearl. She located the source of the magical aura too, which was an underwater cave. The cave was actually pretty easy to get to in the calm water and so we all dove down to it. We found some gold, but more notably a magic wand charged with healing spells and a whole lot of runestones imbued with powerful binding magic. The runestones were of course what we’d come for, but the wand was of particular interest to me, as it would allow me the ability to save some of the limited magical ability I could channel in a day from healing efforts and put it into offensive ones if need be. In addition to that even, it would make us a little more versatile in a fight if someone besides me is able to heal people. 

We bagged up the runestones and left the cave. We emerged from the water to find Tenzakil, that pale bastard, and a small army of spriggans - more than we could reasonably fight, at least on the terrain we were on. He proceeded to threaten us, which in spite of the army surrounding us still managed to come off as laughable, probably because he was clearly shitting his pants in fear. I’m assuming the fear had something to do with the stones, and possibly what his dark queen would do to him for his failure. This is why you don’t make deals with the devil. 

Still, we weren’t in a great position and while we all had a nice staredown, everyone waiting for someone to move, our unicorn friend (later found out his name was Palombier) from the other day showed up with a handful of his buddies in the valley below and hollered for us to get down to them. Seems like a good idea except for the whole problem of getting down. There was the waterfall of course, but it was at least 60ft high and water is remarkably hard when struck at high velocity. I had my rope though. Always have my rope, and I keep a grappling hook tied at one end. We made for the cliff and M jumped his happy ass right off of it without a moment’s hesitation. I quickly secured the rope around a nearby tree and the rest of us rappelled down, which seemed the wiser way to go about things. Probably a good thing none of the sprigands had bows. The unicorns carried us a short distance away before teleporting to safety

The clearing where we appeared held a conclave of various fae and fae-adjacent beings. The hot topic of discussion amongst them was what to do about the rising threat of Rhoswen, and there were three major schools of thought on this. The boldest was to make a full on assault of her castle in the fellnight realm. They had a substantial number of forces and this might work, but that sort of attack is always costly. The most reserved was to engage her in the forest when her army crossed over. Traps could be laid, ambushes sprung, it would focus the casualties heavily to one side at the beginning at least, but the detractors from this plan didn’t see why they should fight this battle in their forest and further devastate the landscape, much of which they had already lost in contention with the mortal races. This led to the third plan, which was to wait until her forces advanced into Nyuyota and attack them there. The buildings of the city would give a certain advantage, and it would wreak less destruction on the wild. What I think these people may have failed to consider was Rhoswen’s recent campaign of cruelty in the woods, something the Dryad’s ought to have been all too aware of given what we witnessed a few days ago. It was unlikely she would just merrily walk through the forest without destroying the place just out of spite. We managed to at least get them to a point of being willing to discuss strategy with each other, but it was late by the time this was accomplished and so we slept.

I should more specifically say I slept, as everyone else was inflicted with supernatural nightmares and ended up roaming the camp in their sleep and screaming. It wasn’t ideal, but in the grand scheme of things it had an odor of desperation. More strategy discussions resulted in a decision that we would infiltrate her castle behind the faenguard (this being the wall the runestones came from and that had for many millennia sealed her away) and the force of fae-folk would harry her assembled army in front of the faenguard to give them something to focus their attention on that wasn’t us. Our goal would be to acquire her staff, which would be needed to reseal the barrier once the stones were in place. Killing her was optional but encouraged if at all feasible. Given that at one point she was powerful enough to create the fellnight realm itself, that notion is a bit up in the air. The attack is to take place tomorrow morning, so I sit here over dinner writing this. I think I’ll leave it here tonight in case I die tomorrow. It should probably find its way back to my family.


	4. Assault on the Fellnight Realm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party storms the castle and slays the evil queen in her throne room before returning to to the material plan for a victory party.

_Arodus 9, 1707 (RW: 1/20/2019):_

That went better than we could have hoped for.

We traveled to the gateway early the next morning. Our party was among the first to pass through, but we delayed until a sizable contingent of our allied forces had come through behind us. We could see the castle in the distance, surrounded by the faenguard (a few-high row of wardstones such as the ones we carried) and about 300 feet outside the faenguard a row of camps stretching out as far as we could see in either direction, mostly inhabited by spriggans. A gathering army. After a debate on the best course of action, we had Pash take some of the oil flasks we had acquired in town and sneak up to 10 of the camps, all near one another, pouring a flask of oil out on each tent. After he returned to us I set these alight with a simple orison. In the ensuing chaos we slipped through and made for the wall.

We were very nearly ambushed by a pair of pixies hiding in bushes, but K’s sharp senses and quick reflexes spared us and we quickly dispatched with them. Moving towards the break in the stones we encountered another bee swarm, which I mostly toasted. We replaced the missing wardstones as we moved through the wall, reasoning that we may not have the time to be doing it later.

And wouldn’t you know it as we walked towards the castle who do we encounter but that little rockchewer Tenzakill. It was pretty clearly written on his face he absolutely did not want to be here anymore, but we weren’t in all that trusting of a mood. He told us about a back way into the castle as what I took to be a plea for his life, and we took a few potent magical items off of him, as well as his club before sending him on his way with his bees. 

We got into the castle without incident and found ourselves in a cellar. We snooped around bit and found some Earth Elementals in one room who weren’t aware of our presence. Figured to just let that be. No reason to start something and make a racket. We found a room with several cells and a prisoner. A lumberjack from the Brecon woods. We released him and then fell back to ambush positions around one of the doors as we heard approaching footsteps that turned out to be the chief interrogator (a satyr, identified by the lumberjack) and a pair of spriggans. We cut one spriggan down, the interrogator ran and the other one followed him, though not very far before K thrust her blade through its chest. The interrogator made the wise decision to surrender and beg for his life rather than continue running. K stayed her blade, at least while we interrogated him.

Our captive drew us a map of the castle, which included everything save for Rhoswen’s personal bedchamber, where he had never been. He knew where the entrance was though. As it turned out, there was a tower with a spiral staircase leading near directly up to her throne room from the dungeon, with simply an armory to pass through at the top before we made it to the door. We probed him with more questions regarding guard patrols, alarm spells, what sort of spells she knew, everything he could possibly tell us. He was not much use past the alarm question, wherein we learned that there were no alarm spells he was aware of. K collapsed his larynx to keep him attracting attention and left him to his former prisoner’s mercy as we headed upstairs. It seemed a fair thing to let the recipient of his cruelty and/or mercy determine his fate. I didn’t think much of his odds for survival.

The armory contained mostly old rusted weapons, likely from previous interloper that had come to kill her (yay), but there were 6 handaxes of exceptional quality and two interesting magical implements. The first was a quarterstaff with the ability to store spell energy and discharge it at will of the wielder. It already contained a casting of dispel magic, which I have to assume had been in there a long time - surely a testament to the quality of the item. The second was particularly noteworthy - a longsword with a faebane enchantment on it. This one was clearly from someone who came to kill Rhoswen. We gave that to M, and I strapped the staff across my back. I had no intention to fight with it, but I could use the spell stored within to dispel something without drawing on mine or Callista’s power.

We knew from the map that there were patrols outside the armory door on a large covered parapet - 2 groups of 2 spriggans. P snuck out to take a look, noted that the throne room door was made of a solid heavy wood and was shut, which would give us a little leeway with sound at least until we opened it. M had his cat go harass the guards and then get them to chase it into the armory, where we fell upon them quickly and relatively quietly, as far as decapitating spriggans and caving in their chests goes. This made just enough noise to draw in the other 2 guards, who were dispatched with no greater mercy. We moved to her bedroom and looked around. There was one alarm aura at the bottom of the staircase which I dispelled with the staff. The bedroom didn’t have much of note. Some jewelry, some very old, likely very valuable wine, and a magical elevator to a high platform with a design on the floor. This we reasoned was where the faenguard needed to be repaired from (highest point in the realm is we had been told).

Outside her throne room I reached out with my senses and detected multiple overlapping auras of power about a quarter of the way along the circular room from where the door was. Reasonable conclusion was that this was where she was standing. The plan was simple: Try to approach and kill her before she gets a chance to fight back. Maybe we could take her in fair fight, maybe not, but evil doesn’t fight fair and I see no reason we should when opposing it. I enveloped us in a sphere of silence wide enough to cover the entire party and - just as importantly - the door hinges. We opened the door to see her standing in front of a mirror observing the battle between her forces and the fae army that came through behind us. She didn’t react to our presence, so we advanced on her from behind. I spun out a blessing while we walked to help our blows land true, and stopped when the silence sphere I had cast on myself was just about to envelope her, which would have made her aware of our presence. 

Rinpar, Pash, and Khauldera all advanced and made their best attacks with somewhat mixed results. Some blows landed, but the results should have been better and I’ve been around long enough to recognize the effects of a mage armor spell, which I asked Callista to dispel (she did this with very little effort) while I summoned some poisoned frogs. My intent was to summon 3. I ended up with one due to the fickle nature of multi-creature summonings, but he did what I wanted him to do, which was infect her with a poison that diminished her body’s ability to tolerate injury. She reached up and grabbed a bird from one of the many cages hanging off the ceiling of the throne room. She did something to it, but I don’t know what it was. Could have been a transformation spell, but the bird never had a chance to transform if so, as M immediately ran it through with his sword. Maybe not the move I would have made if I was holding a faebane sword, but an understandable enough one in the heat of battle. I attempted to entangle her with chains made of a similar magic to her mage armor, but she slipped free. It did her little good when Pash going in for a second attack from behind jammed his daggers in below her ribs and clearly hit something vital because the fervor with which her hands were weaving through arcane gestures near-instantly faded to sluggishness. At this point Alric walked up and summoned some hellish drums, hitting her with a sonic blast that probably ruptured every capillary she had. Her staff fell from her hand and she fell forwards to the ground, whereupon Morgrym kicked her over onto her back and drove his sword through her throat, decapitating her with a twist of the blade.

We knew that battle still raged outside, so we didn’t waste time with grabbing her staff and her head and hastening back to her bedroom to perform the ritual. As the most magically trained member of the party I tried first, but much to my chagrin failed miserably. Khauldera was able to perform it, to everyone’s shock. Something about that woman that we don’t know…. maybe something she doesn’t know. Morgrym of course took this as a reason to talk shit to me regarding my magical ability, to which I asked him if he enjoyed having his stab wounds knitted by divine power or if he’d prefer to lie in bed for weeks in pain while they healed naturally. On the one hand I feel like I’m too old to be so petty (surely by human standards, which don’t necessarily apply), but on the other hand I’m very tempted to start asking him what good he is every time one of his arrows missing it’s mark or his sword glances off armor. Anyways….

As the ritual tower gave us a clear view of the battle raging outside the faenguard, we were aware that all enemy combatants were unceremoniously sucked back to our side when the spell was completed. We reasoned that they would be disoriented and it shouldn’t be too hard to sneak back out, but that we probably shouldn’t push our luck anyways by staying too long. We grabbed anything of value from her room, checked the adjacent guest quarters, went back to her throne room and freed the birds (hate for them to starve in their cages) and smashed the mirror so it can’t be used by her if/when she returns to life, as first-worlders tend to when not killed on the material plane. We realized that the bird cages themselves were made of pure gold, so we smashed most of them down until they would fit inside the others and took those with us. We went out of the castle the way we came in to avoid any guards. On our way back through the armory we made sure to nab the handaxes and throw them in our bags. We found the corpse of the satyr jailor in the dungeon and the lumberjack waiting for us by the exit. The journey back to the wall was unremarkable, but we found we were unable to take the severed head through with us. I suggested catapulting it into the midst of her scattered forces, but we ultimately decided to just bury it. Pash emptied his bladder on the site. I’m not really sure what his obsession with piss is, but I felt it was reasonably appropriate here.

We met up with our forces before exiting the realm, trekked back to the grove, nothing exciting really to talk about. I offered my services as a healer for their injured, but they had healers in no short supply and didn’t seem to want to ask us for anything else. Tonight is to be a night of rest and recovery, followed by a later morning and then a long celebration. After that, we’re heading back to Nyuyota, and then we can get back to Masalworth and finish dealing with that tower, which hopefully hasn’t disgorged any horrible evil on the world while we were beating back horrible evil here.


	5. The Road back to Nyuyota

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief journal entry written by fireside as the party travels back to Nyuota, recounting the events of the victory celebration and a key piece of intel about the mark on their hands.

_Arodus 11, 1707_

On the road back. Uneventful day of travel. Sitting by the fire right now. The party was wild. You live for thousands of years and I guess you really learn how to cut loose. Pash did what was surely an unhealthy amount of some pixie drug and got into…. I think it would technically qualify as an orgy? With a whole ball of pixies. While again, I’m not judging, I’m also not recounting that particular event in vivid detail here. Morgrym found some action, Khauldera and Rinpar danced together a bit, I flirted clumsily with a centaur and drank too much. Let no man say faerie folk don’t know how to brew a proper spirit.

I was lucid enough at some point early in the festivities to get the idea of asking some folks about the triskele marks on our hands. The fact it was shared by the lycanthrope-like creatures in Masalworth has been bothering me, making me feel like maybe things aren’t quite as shiny and clean as we’d like them to be. Not that we’d know how shiny and clean they are since we’ve been given virtually no information about this quest we’re supposed to be on. I’ve even entertained the thought that the “angel” who appeared before us wasn’t any agent of Mitra at all but something else, co-opting us for another purpose. I’m willing to take it on faith for the time being, but I’m still going to do everything I can to learn more. I spoke to one elf who called another over by the name of Feyrinthe. Feyrinthe recognized the symbol as that of an old alliance between fey and wood elves. He had seen it etched in the glass at an old elven moon temple somewhere in the country of Elfein. I’ll have to make a point to learn more next time I get access to a decent library.


	6. Still The Road to Nyuyota

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erend sits down to really look at an ancient journal from the Masalworth tower, and muses about potion brewing an armor choices.

_Arodus 12, 1707_

Another uneventful day of travel. Staring at the campfire tonight I got it in my head to take a look at that journal we pulled out of the Masalworth tower and I’ve been carting around in my backpack ever since. The leather is very old. If my memory serves me, leather like this hasn’t been made in hundreds of years, as the animal it came from is extinct. I’ve seen its like on some of the very old books back home and in older temples I visited while travelling. It looked like it may have gotten wet at some point. Smelled a bit like sulfur, not all that shocking since the tower came up from underground. There was a simple inscription on the cover. It wasn’t a language I outright recognized, but I speak 9 of them and as such I’ve got noteworthy skill at deciphering new ones. I’m reasonably certain I know what it says: “LOST ATLANTIA”. I don’t know what that is though, apart from some old stories of questionable reliability. Will do some reading when I get back to a town with a larger library and there’s no crisis looming. There was some sort of magic on the book too, but it wasn’t something I could identify. Similar, but different to what I’m used to seeing.

Switching gears wildly, I’ve been giving some thought to my armor and decided to change it up a bit for greater mobility. I know at least one local smith in Witry has designs for a breastplate that’s specifically designed to allow greater mobility than more standard design while not reducing protection. I penned a letter back to Delphaus asking him to commission me one of these, which I will pay for one my return to the city. It’s not a cheap proposition, but we’ve been coming across a fair bit of money and valuables in our travels lately, and most of it in the hands of people who were in great need of killing anyways. That’s to say: I can afford it. I’ll have the armorsmith in Nyuyota take my measurements so I can send those with the letter.

I’ve also been wanting to try my hand at potion brewing. Not for profit or anything, just as a way to aid the party. It would be useful for people to be able to carry potions for certain spell effects in case I’m not able to cast them for any reason. Some health potions, maybe stabilize, etc. I’m sure I can get more creative with it too. I still have the empty oil flasks, so I’ll get those good and washed out. 10 flasks should be enough to get started.


	7. A Feast and a Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party indulges the Nyuyotans in a celebratory banquet, and heads back to Masalworth for a brutal engagement that very nearly spells their end.

_Arodus 17th, 1707 (RW: 1/27/2019):_

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Fuck. Just fuck me am I exhausted. I don’t think I’ve ever slung that many spells in one day outside of training when, I deliberately pushed myself to my limits just to know where they were. They’ve changed since then, gotten substantially higher, and a good thing too. Otherwise I’d likely be gutted and laying dead on the floor of that damned tower. I’ll start from the beginning, which is to say where my last entry left off. 

We got back to Nyuyota as planned on the 13th, around midday. They hailed us as returning heroes and insisted on throwing a celebration that evening. The speed with which they were able to put this together astounded me. They must have crowd-sourced the food and the ovens, because I have a rough idea how long it takes to make a meal that large, and it’s not something you generally do in an afternoon. Nevertheless, we all agreed that of course we would come to the feast, and then split off to do handle various personal errands in the meantime. 

I stopped at a store for a few supplies as mentioned previously (more trail rations, plus some twine which I wound around the vials of blood M had recovered from the Masalworth tower, labelling them as one, two, and three. We took up lodging at a local inn, where I used a blood biography spell on two of the vials to ascertain more about them. What I found was that both samples of blood had been given voluntarily and within the last few months by a human and a half-elf, both lycanthropes. Jumping ahead a bit, I repeated this spell the next morning on the third vial and the dagger I had acquired in the tower. Two more humans, both lycanthropes. The dagger was the oldest blood of the pack (4 months) and the human who shed it went by the name of Rydel, apparently a pack leader. Still voluntary though. I wonder if he was a sacrifice, or perhaps it was some nonlethal ritual? The dagger looks like it has more significance than just any old blade. I figured we’d find out more once we spent more time clearing out the tower. 

Back to the night of the celebration then. After working my magic on the blood, I took 4 of the handaxes we had recovered from Rhoswen’s palace (Morgrym elected to keep one) and all the gold cages and sold them for a tidy sum, which I distributed among the party back at the inn. Pash’s I pretty much tossed into his lap as he sat curled over in a corner, not looking at all well. The after-effects of that drug appeared to be hitting him like a ton of bricks yet. We attended the feast to much fanfare, which was a little uncomfortable - I’m not really one for standing around having folks praise me, but I think it’s important to people to express their gratitude when they’ve been faced with mortal peril, so I endured it. 

The food was delicious. Huge roast birds, and piles of stuffing, stacks of pies that looked like they were baked in ovens across the city. I ate my fill mostly on bacon and stuffing, then destroyed an entire pie single handedly, which I felt a touch gluttonous over, but not for very long. Now normally I don’t pay much attention to other people’s eating, but I feel it must be remarked that Khauldera ate FOUR pies, and that was after a healthy helping of the main courses. On the one hand I guess those braided steel muscles take a lot to sustain, but one the other, I have no idea where she put it all. She’s not a large woman. She looked like she was 6 months pregnant by the end of the night though, and I don’t think I saw her eat anything until breakfast nearly 36 hours later. She was talking conspiratorially with the bartender, who poured her something from behind the counter, and then eventually just gave up the whole bottle when a few gold pieces changed hands. I watched this while drinking a large cup of coffee, which I’d had to special request but they were more than happy to make. I saw Morgrym slip under the table with the girl he’d won the silent auction against Tenzakil for at wedding. He left with her too, so I’m sure he had a good night. Alric introduced us to a halfling woman he had met named Shaeni and her raccoon named Egg. The beginnings of his circus. He plans to head to the capitol to find a patron and more performers. He believed this was not the last time we would meet. 

We convened in the inn the following morning, some of us more hungover than others. M, having not wanted to wake his partner from the night before, and her knowing full well he was going to leave town on the morrow anyways, had attempted to climb out her window, failed miserably, and banged himself up a fair bit on landing. He came in sporting at least one broken rib which was easily fixed, but hilarious. We didn’t waste much time leaving, though we had to politely turn down numerous requests to stay, one person even going so far as to offer us a free house. They took it fairly well when we explained that there was another potential world-ending catastrophe we needed to go deal with. We found our boat near the shore, though it took some looking what with it having shrunk back to the size of a toy. The journey back downriver to Masalworth was the very definition of uneventful. I had been somewhat concerned about the location where we encountered the water elementals on the way here, but they didn’t make an appearance, probably remembering us. 

What we found in Masalworth was a far cry from what we left behind. It seems that word had reached the Church of Mitra in the capital and they’d dispatched a contingent of enforcers and scholars under the leadership of a bishop to take stock of the situation and defend the town if needed. They were initially brusque and somewhat mistrustful of us, but I spoke with them as a fellow man of the faith, explained that we had been here before (of course they had heard of us from the townsfolk), why we had left, and why we were now back. They accepted this story but asked us to come speak with the bishop, who was residing in the mayor’s office - more on that shortly. As we were about to turn to go, Pash (who had up until now been nervously trying to look nondescript in the back of the group) darted forward and disappeared into the city. It didn’t take a whole lot of explanation. They knew that story too. If I were him I also would be nervous around paladins. 

As we were walking to the mayor’s office I got a better look at one of the guards and realized I knew him. Antonius Kosik. I had studied with him at the sun temple in Mavere a decade ago. He was barely an adult at the time and just starting his formal magical and combat instruction. While my overall magic experience was quite a lot greater than his, the specifics of much of what we were learning we as new to me as him. I helped him in some of the more generalized fundamentals of casting and channeling, and this in turn allowed his instructor to move through the material of sun magic quicker than she otherwise would have. Still I stayed for several years and we developed a fraternal sort of relationship. He signed on with a naval vessel around the time I was readying to leave the temple and we hadn’t kept in touch. He did further vouch for me though, and by extension our group. It’s good to know people. 

Our conversation with the bishop was brief. He related what had happened since they arrived in town. The gist is that they started exploring and studying the tower, and they had no issues with the first several floors, all of which we had cleared before leaving. I’m not sure why nobody from inside the tower had come down to investigate these floors, but it appears they hadn’t. They had sent an armed party of holy warriors and several townsfolk volunteers up to the 4th floor, never to be seen again. At this Morgrym, who had previously been irreverently attempting to throw small objects into the bishop’s hat (something the bishop tolerated with a serene patience that suggested to me he has many grandchildren), grew angry. He half yelled the question of why the hell they would let untrained civilians walk right into an enemy’s lair, especially the town’s interim mayor who was a novice spellcaster at best. The bishop said they had insisted, particularly the mayor Takden, and he wasn’t inclined to turn down help where he could get it. This explanation didn’t satisfy M, and he proceeded to snark at several other church members we encountered over the rest of the day. I didn’t entirely agree with him, but he could have been more wrong too. This had been no task for amateurs, and they as likely got in the way as offered any valuable aid. 

Since more Lycanthropes were likely we went to the blacksmith to see about a silver sword for Rinpar. Pash joined us on the way wearing thick robes and a medical mask designed for the purpose of filtering out airborne illness. It didn’t do much to hide his stature, and in this town that made it a pretty piss-poor disguise, but he clung to it. We had the raw materials for a sword yet from the silver mine back down by Witry, but between refining the silver and constructing the weapon, it was going to take several days of work. We reasoned we should probably not wait several days if there was a chance the missing people were still alive, which there was. It was still early afternoon, so we decided to venture into the tower today yet. We requested the blacksmith make the sword as soon as possible. Everyone split briefly to purchase needed supplies, R went to visit his horse, and I dropped some things off in the wagon we had left parked here. 

When we reconvened in front of the tower we saw that the large repeating crossbows aimed at it had been replaced by much nicer models, likely courtesy of the church, and our makeshift bridge had been replaced by a hastily constructed but properly built actual bridge, with guardrails and a more even walking surface. On entering the tower, the reason for this was made clear. There were many holy warriors standing guard, but also at least 2 dozen scholars, some of whom were well past an age where I would have wanted to subject them to our previously acceptable excuse for a bridge. Making our way through the hallways we had brief conversations with the scholars and guards, but didn’t learn anything we didn’t already know. The base of the staircase up to the 3rd floor was heavily guarded, and those guards wished us luck as we cautiously took the stairs. 

The stairs came out into a stockroom. Food mostly, 2 doors out, not counting the one we had just come through. We had Pash scout the open one and he came back snickering. It was a dead end, and he had found Aloriac (the captain of the guard who had previously accosted him for stealing the potions) cowering at the end. We made sure he wasn’t seriously injured and K helped him back down the stairs, advising the folks at the bottom to do a full medical examination in case of lycanthropy infection. In the next room he reported 3 individuals clustered around a stove. I thought this a good opportunity for a surprise attack, and since I’d juuuuust gotten this fireball spell right (I thought) I poked my head around the corner and sent one flying into the center of the three. The spell itself didn’t do the damage I was hoping for, which proved a moot point when it DID ignite the tank on the gas stove they were using. It hadn’t even occurred to me the stove might be gas. I just didn’t expect to find something like that here. THAT explosion did well more than what I’d intended and reduced all three individuals to charred corpses, flared out of the room charring the end of my beard, and damaged the wall the stove was up against revealing some glass-looking tubes behind it that flowed with a purple energy. It looked like the stuff at the bottom of the pit that was below the tower. Interesting. A mystery for another time though. 

We waited for a while to see if the explosion had drawn any attention. If it had, nobody came to look. In the next room Pash missed an arrow trap while scouting and I took several acid-tipped arrows to the arm, which hurt one hell of a lot. The door out of that room was trapped with an alarm spell that we figured to trip and then ambush the people who came to investigate, which in retrospect we should have known wasn’t going to work seeing as they didn’t come to investigate the explosion that had been powerful enough to damage stone walls. When nobody came for several minutes we pressed forward and came to a closed portcullis, the only way deeper into the floor. On the other side stood 4 werewolves and 2 direwolves. One of the former was substantially larger than his cohorts. It stood to reason that these were what happened to the exploratory party and they would have to be killed, but it did no good to try to force the gate open and give them free swings at us, so….. I taunted them. Something along the lines of “Open the gate so we can come kill you”, to which they happily obliged. Maybe not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, though even in retrospect I’m not sure how it really could have played out all that much differently at that point. Stealth was something we’d long since left lying beaten and bloody by the side of the road. This is where things got really ugly. 

The fight that followed was a clusterfuck. Khauldera surged forward and put herself in the middle of the 5 smaller combatants, swinging her sword at everything she could reach, but absorbing wounds in between strikes. Rinpar advanced a few steps behind her and tried to help with the werewolves but had little luck due to his lack of silver. The alpha came straight at me, trying to bowl clear through Morgrym in the narrow hallway to do it, but he stood firm and fought. He suffered multiple mortal wounds in the process and wouldn’t have survived for even a third of the fight if I hadn’t funelled nearly every bit of power I could muster into healing him almost as quickly as he was getting torn up. He DID have a silver weapon and he steadily fought, landing only maybe one in two blows. I healed more rapidly than I’d thought possible, even digging into my bag for scrolls to pull power from. Pash, behind me and not really able to do anything else, fired silver bolts from his crossbow. When I could afford to take my full attention off of Morgrym for a few seconds, I channelled holy energy into the area for a more generalized healing effect in an attempt to sustain Khauldera and Rinpar. At some point Morgrym threw the healing wand to Pash so he could assist. 

It was not looking good, as even beyond my limits I could barely funnel life back into M as he was being slashed apart. I don’t know the order of things surrounding the turning point. Rinpar downed a wolf and fell under the weight on his injuries. Someone killed the other wolf, Khauldera managed to stop Rinpar from bleeding out long enough to shoot into the hallway and take the alpha in the back with a solid blow that brought his death into sharp focus. M yelled that he was going to make the bastard into a coat as he cut the beast’s front open with a downward slash, spilling his guts out on the floor. One of the werewolves darted to statue of Jezelda in the corner of the room, grabbed something from the offering box, and fled as his brothers met unceremonious and bloody ends. Just like that it was over. 

Not under threat of impending death anymore we took a couple minutes to regroup, all except for Khauldera who launched herself a foot into the air and busted Rinpar square across the jaw before storming out. I didn’t get the story on that one until later that night when she explained to me that she disagreed vehemently with his chosen battle tactics. Once I caught my breath and my head stopped pounding, I was able to put Rinpar right, who was not dying but also barely standing (the punch didn’t really have anything to do with this when put up next to the 4 beast’s worth of maulings he had endured. We looted the offering box in front of the statue, and Morgrym, who still had some steam to work off, borrowed Calista to pummel the statue into dust, something she definitely enjoyed more than he did. Making good on his word, he then carved the skin off of the alpha, then the direwolves simply because a pelt that size sells for good money. We left the tower, staggering a bit, briefly related our story to the people on the lower floors. 

M took his prize to the tailor to request it be made into a new cloak. He sold one of the other pelt and gave me the proceeds. A way of thanks, I guess. I met K in the bar where she was drowning her anger in alcohol. I had a tall few myself and in some mix of not caring and not wanting to be an ass, borrowed a table cloth from the bar and stripped down in the river to wash the blood and guts off my body and armor. I went back to the bar wrapped in the tablecloth and bid everyone a good night. I think tomorrow we’re going to stay in town for the day, I’ll work on some potions, and we’ll not venture into the tower until we’re ALL properly armed. 


	8. Treachery and Idiocy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party learns a terrible truth about the tower's inhabitants and loses... well they wouldn't exactly call him a friend.

_Arodus 20th, 1707 (RW: 2/3/2019):_

Pash is lucky to be alive, or unlucky as his fate may shake out. In any case he’s probably done travelling with our group. I’ll get to that later though, as it pertains to events that just happened, and I have several days to cover.

We spent the 18th in town as planned. I went to the Alchemist’s shop first thing in the morning and had to convince her to sell to me after what happened last time we paid her a visit, but I eventually prevailed and got the supplies I needed for the potions I had in mind. I paid her an extra 25 gold as some sort of apology for the trouble last time and for Pash’s mere existence. As I stepped out of the shop, Antonius beckoned me into an alley. He informed me that last night several people emerged from the tower - two paladins and and enforcer, part of the group that had initially gone in. They were taken to the mayor’s office and haven’t been seen since. The church has not made this knowledge public yet. The reasons could be perfectly benign, but he felt we should know. He asked I not reveal outside the party that he was the person who told me this. Really I think he’d prefer I not reveal it to the party either, but at the very least Pash was definitely eavesdropping on the conversation, and possibly Morgrym too so that cat’s pretty much out of the bag. Antonius also informed me that he had seen the mayor conversing with a black-skinned elf before she entered the tower. Drow? I don’t know much about them other than that they live in the Underdark and have a very unlovely reputation. I relayed this information to the party in my room while I was finishing my potions for the day. 

On the subject of potions, my general knowledge of spells served me well and my first ever potions came out perfectly. I brewed up a healing potion, a protection from evil potion, and an iron beard potion. The last one being a fun little spell which would cause the drinker to sprout a beard so tough as to serve as armor. I gave that one to Morgrym, much to his gleeful delight. We discussed as a group and made the decision that people would pay me my material cost for any potions they recieve. I’m not trying to make a profit off my companions and I’m not going to quibble over a few gold pieces here and there, but the supplies to make more powerful potions are very expensive and I simply can’t bankroll it myself.

I didn’t pay a large degree of attention to what the rest of the party did that day. I’m pretty sure Pash paid the alchemist’s shop a visit against all good sense or reason. I mostly cloistered in my room working on the afore-mentioned potions and only came out for the evening meal. The next morning we went to the blacksmith’s workshop and picked up R’s new sword. While we were there, his eye was snagged by a very well-wrought tower shield. He reasoned he could make exceptional use of this in close quarters such as the tower, and he was certainly strong enough to use it, so he ended up leaving with that too. I gave the blacksmith one of my silver ore chunks and requested a silver dagger, which would take a day to make, no issue there. We then headed to the tower, and things got bad in a wholly unexpected way. 

As we passed through the destroyed kitchen we noticed that a campfire had been set up and a cookpot over it. The bodies had been cleared out. Generally more signs of habitation and civilization than we were expecting, and I felt a pang of something. The room where we’d fought the other day had likewise been cleared and the blood cleaned off the floor. The pang returned; a general unease. Not danger, but a feeling like the bottom was about to drop out from under us. Pash scouted ahead in the direction the werewolf had run 2 days ago. He heard multiple things walking around in a room just down the hallway. We crowded into the passage and prepared for another fight. Pash picked the lock to find 3 direwolves and a young human boy of maybe 12 attempting to calm them down and begging us not to harm them, saying that he could control them. I directed the child to chain them up, which he did without argument. Pash inspected the locks to ensure they were secure. The child explained that we’d walked through an alarm spell (stupid, stupid, I should have thought of that) and it had woken up and agitated the wolves. He told us he lives here with his family and pack (he was a werewolf), and he seemed to be terrified of us. We asked him to show us to the adults and he nervously led the way. 

We followed just down the passage to a room, where he opened a door to reveal 18 human-formed werewolves of various ages and genders - though they skewed female and young, which we would find out is because we had killed most of the fighting age males - and two paladins, presumably from the Church’s incursion force. We were mistrustful and cautious at first, but we spoke with them at length and never detected a hint of deception as they told us their story. This was the point where the bottom dropped out. 

We learned that they were for all intents and purposes refugees. They had previously lived in the underdark as part of a much larger pack. Their pack leader had come to the decision that they needed to increase their numbers, and his plan for this was to expand it from the ranks of the derro they shared an uneasy though usually relatively peaceful coexistence with. Rydell, the former pack leader here in the tower and the husband of Tharja with whom we spoke had opposed this course of action. He insisted the derro are not an enemy to court, and that it was foolhardy to start a conflict where there was peace. He hadn’t challenged the pack leader officially though until the conflict with the derro cost him his daughter, who he found in pieces one day, left for him by the derro. He had challenged the alpha in a blind fury and lost, whereupon instead of a duly owed honorable death, he, his family, and all his sympathizers had been cast out. They had wandered as vagrants for a time before meeting a drow woman Navenna, claiming to be a queen and a servant of Jezelda (a common deity worshipped by werewolves in the underdark). She offered them safe shelter and food, provided they would assist her with her research regarding lycanthropy which would mostly just require blood samples from them. They lived in the lower floors of her tower for some time before it rose to the surface, and the rest has been a horror story of slowly losing friends and family to…. Us. 

More specifically, they first lost contact with their surveyors on the lowest floor, then the research floor one level up. Things were quiet for a while - this would be on account of us going to Nyuyota to deal with Rhoswen - but then the Church arrived and set up on the lowest two floors, sending a fighting force up to the third. We didn’t actually get the specifics on what happened with that group, or maybe I just missed it because my ears were ringing and my head was spinning from the realization of what we’d done and what we were to these people. I may have glazed over for a while. They said those with substantial magical talent had been taken upstairs by Navenna days ago when she made a rare appearance timed to their arrival, and that this was the last they had seen of her or them. In fact, she had seemed to lose interest in them some time ago after she’d gotten her blood samples and done her tests. I managed to spit out out something about a proclamation of doom on the town declared immediately after the tower ripped its way out of the earth and through a temple of Mitra, immediately following a series of deadly night attacks by wolf-like spirit entities. They said they had known nothing about this, and again, I believed them. The presence of the paladins didn’t hurt their case; their order is not known for tolerating evil, and we learned they had been helping tend wounds and console grieving widows for the last several days. Khauldera quite reasonably surmised that the illusory wolves and the disappearances, possibly even the balcony proclamation were part of a plan to get us to kill the refugees so Navenna wouldn’t have to. There goes that sick feeling again, but at least this time there was some anger to direct at someone other than myself.

Since we’d gotten the distinct impression that they didn’t much care for Navenna these days, particularly after our explanation of just WHY we’d been slaughtering them was set on the table, we asked if any would like to come with us to have a friendly chat&kill with her. That got a resounding chorus of NO’s. They felt she was far too powerful and they wouldn’t stand a chance. I think if she was that powerful then she ought to have been able to deal with a few dozen werewolves herself unless she’s so far up her own ass that she felt it beneath her illustrious personhood to spend a half-hour slaughtering innocents. Truth be told I am a little concerned about biting off more than we can chew, but then that’s never stopped us before now.

Anyways if they weren’t going to help we needed to get them out of here, and none of us much liked their chances with the Church at large. We assessed our options and eventually came up with a pretty decent plan that we could execute with the resources available if we could just make a distraction. This work gave me something to focus on other than the bottomless pit in my stomach too, and I was grateful for the distraction. Our current level of the tower was high enough in the air that we had a clear view of the surrounding trees, and there had been a wand charged with an Animate Rope spell in the tower. I didn’t ask what that had been used for. We figured to tie some rope off to something in the tower and then to a tree trunk and have everyone climb down. If they could escape into the treeline, they should be safe. Two problems with that plan: The first being the perimeter around the town and specifically the weapon emplacements around the tower, and the second being the direwolves, who couldn’t climb down a rope. 

We spun off a secondary plan for the wolves. Through the lycanthropes’ ability to communicate with them and Morgrym’s modest magical talents, which fortuitously included several spells good for dealing with animals, we were able to keep the wolves calm enough to appear dead as we carried them out of the tower and past the perimeter. The illusion was helped by some blood donated by the lycanthropes. We lied to the guards as we carried them out, saying they were contaminated and needed to be burned. The paladins returning with us corroborated this story. That part went off without incident and we discussed our next move. 

It was Khauldera’s and Rinpar’s idea to stage a fight once the sun went down. You wouldn’t look at them next to each other and expect there to be much of a fight if it ever came down to fisticuffs, but once the punches started flying and it was clear that against all appearances she could hold her own, people got interested. Morgrym started taking bets, and Pash and I headed back into the tower. I may have conjured some water onto Khauldera to soak her shirt and add an additional element of appeal to the fight. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of that action, but she had a good sense of humor about it either way. Once back at the window in the tower, I used the wand to send the rope over the chasm and tie it off. The tower denizens did not waste any time getting across it. I used the wand a second time to retrieve my rope, and some time later we all regrouped in the empty room where the lycanthropes had been staying. We dragged furniture across the doorway and stayed the night. In retrospect I’m not sure why we decided on that over staying in town.

In the morning we headed up to the next floor. There was more of a landing at the top of the stairs than we had seen thus far in the structure, and a pristine statue of Mitra. I wondered briefly at why this likeness out of all of them was unharmed. Most reasonable conclusion I could draw was that the desecration on the lower level had been purely to further anger us into killing the werewolves. There was more of that luminescent mold we’d encountered on the first floor and we remembered what that meant. Creeping forward we confirmed the presence of the fungus beasts that carried the rotting disease, but I had a few more tricks up my sleeve this time. I let off a fireball that, unlike the previous day, burned hot and scorched all three of them. Pash did a hit of his pixie coke and ran screaming forward, missed the enemy entirely, and landed a brutal assault against the wall. Rinpar planted his new shield to provide cover, Khauldera cut down one of the monstrosities with her sword, I killed another with more fire, and someone killed the third, I don’t remember precisely. Nobody got struck. It was a solid victory.

The room they’d been inhabiting was quite empty. There were marks on the floor and walls, mostly in dust where it appeared bookshelves had previously rested. There were bits of broken wood on the ground that somebody hadn’t bothered to clean up, probably after moving the bookshelves. The stonework in the walls was incomplete and the glass tubing we’d seen in the damaged kitchen was visible here too. Callista morosely informed us that this had been her library. The smaller room to the side was her study, and the other door out which was guarded by some white pillars led to her chambers. She advised us to not attempt to bypass the pillars without properly disabling them, though she couldn’t remember the exact process to disable them by.

Pash and Morgrym crept into the study and heard a few plops, followed by what they’ve described as a remarkable must have been remarkable pain as ooze monsters invaded their bodies… It never lets up, does it? The fight was brief. The oozes were basically defenseless as they clung to their victims and they received a swift beatdown. The harm was not insubstantial though. Both Pash and Morgrym were looking quite drained, like they’d lost a lot of blood. We decided best to call it a day there and go back to town to recover. With Callista’s blessing, we looted a chest in the room for some platinum coinage plus a fire opal that seemed to brighten her up quite a bit. She said it had been her very favorite. I think I’m going to see if I can get it set into her handle or something. Since we had most of the day left I figured I could whip up a few more potions anyways after a quick trip to the alchemist’s shop. 

This was around the point where things started to go wrong for Pash, helped merrily along by his gleeful idiocy. They all went to the tavern and started drinking hammer beers (very strong). I joined them when they were about a round in after having purchased and taken home my supplies from the alchemist’s shop, picked up my new silver dagger, and sold some gemstones. I distributed the coin, had a beer, ordered some food, and watched as Khauldera got up on a table and started declaring that we were happy to be the champions of this town and would fight to protect them down to every individual, unlike the church. It was all well and good until that last part. That caught the attention of another paladin who had until then been enjoying his meal quietly, and he came over to ask her if she had a problem. I watched this exchange ponderously, wondering if and when I should intervene. Surely before it came to blows or just to redirect it towards simple blows and not blades - better a bar brawl than a fight to the death over some drunken bravado. Pash drew his daggers and made like he was prepared to strike at the soldier’s groin, like he could have gotten through the armor. Rinpar stepped in and mollified the paladin before things escalated. I finished my meal and left to go work on my potions.

A little over two hours later while I was just starting on the second of them, Khauldera came running into my room to tell me that Pash had been arrested by the church for attempted murder of one of their people outside the bar. He had taken a potion of invisibility and tried to stab the paladin from earlier in the neck with a poisoned dagger. He had apparently not known that the potion’s effect would dissipate immediately upon taking such an action, grossly overestimated his own ability, and grossly underestimated the hardiness of holy warriors. His dagger barely glanced the skin and the knight turned around and cut him down with barely an effort, only sparing his life at the urging of the companion he’d been conversing with. Pash was taken into custody.

I acknowledged this information, finished my potion, sat down to write this journal entry, and now I’m going to bed. I’m not dealing with that tonight. If he manages to not get himself killed by morning I’ll go make a half-assed attempt to free him.


	9. Well Pash, It Wasn't Nice Knowing Ya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief entry where Erend tries unenthusiastically to save Pash's life.

_Arodus 21 (RW: 2/03/2019):_

After a calm breakfast, I made my way to the archbishop’s office to make my case for Pash’s freedom. It wasn’t much of one since the only real argument I had was the triskele mark and the angel of Mitra, the mark proving precisely nothing and the angel there being no proof of. The archbishop said he would free the rat if I agreed to take responsibility for him and any crimes he may commit in the future, to which I didn’t win any favor by laughing in his face as I struggled to spit out the words “Fuck” and “No” in that order. Hanging is frankly just what he deserves, and if Mitra has other plans for him then let him make those clear. The trial is to be in Witry in several weeks’ time, and a letter has been dispatched to Pash’s closest known relative. 

Khauldera suggested Rinpar may be willing to take the offer I didn’t even consider. As it turned out, he actually was. More noble than intelligent, that one. We went down to a small bedroom where Pash was tied into a burlap sack, tossed onto a bed, and under heavy guard. We had a brief conversation where Pash straight up told Rinpar he shouldn’t vouch for him and that it would get him killed, then pissed himself. I conjured water onto him to dampen the smell. And we left in disgust. I’ve stopped back at my room for an hour or so while everyone finishes their business and makes ready to once again delve into the tower.


	10. The Tower Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party make their final foray into the mysterious tower in Masalworth. Erend has a traumatic experience and learns something unexpected about Callista.

_Arodus 22, 1707 (RW: 2/10/2019):_

And I thought I felt like hell a couple days ago.

After my last entry we headed back inside for we hoped would be the last time, though obviously one fewer in number due to Pash’s absence.. We climbed back up to the library where we’d been accosted the day prior. Callista couldn’t actually remember how to get past the security pillars, but she knew there was a hint on the inner surface of a loose brick to the left of the doorway, so we located that, pulled it out, and quickly figured out the sequence to bypass the pillars. On the way to her quarters Morgrym stepped on a pressure plate and took an acid-tipped arrow to the arm. Sure would be nice if Pash hadn’t gone and gotten himself arrested. He was almost as good at finding traps as he was at urinating on things. We came out of the abnormally long and very dark hallway behind the security door into an apparent antechamber, the door on the other side of which led to a staircase going up another floor. There was a wooden turtle sitting on the only table in the room. It looked, for as much as turtle’s have distinguishing features, like the turtle we’d run into in the goblin camp on our way to Masalworth weeks back - the one that turns out to be the wizard Constance. Morgrym carefully packed this in his bag before we continued on. Not sure what she’d be doing here or why she’d be made of wood, but weird shit is our stock-in-trade.

There was a branching hallway before we reached the stairs which contained a chest. That seemed off, and M hit it with an arrow just to be on the safe side, which caused it to become enraged in a most un chest-like fashion and it heaved itself towards us as fast as it could, which wasn’t very fast. R blocked the hallway off with his shield, and the mimic couldn’t get through, but we couldn’t attack it either and so we eventually had to let it come at us in order to get some clear shots. Morgrym’s cat Luci got itself stuck on the aberration’s adhesive secretions and once he worked himself free, rapidly fled to the other side of the antechamber and stayed there. It wasn’t a terribly hard fight as these things go.

We took the stairs and on the next floor found a room stacked with books (Callista ID’d these as her missing library) and with a table of more wooden figurines, all of people. Callista expressed with horror that the people must have been reading her books, but she couldn’t understand why, as the protective curses she had laid on them would have inflicted ever increasing torments to mind and body the longer they persisted. We moved through this room to another, it’s equal in size, with a single wooden table near the back wall where Takdan stood over a book, trying to read it with eyes that could barely focus and looked like she had been clawing at them. Blood dripped from her ears. She appeared to be in agony. We went over and snapped her out of the trance she had been in and she collapsed.

As we helped steady her, a drow female stepped from the shadows. She was beautiful, in a dark, haughty sort of way. This must have been Navenna then. She waved her hand in an arcane gesture and I found myself frozen, unable to move, speak, barely even blink. What I could see of my companions told me they were suffering the same. She started saying something, I didn’t hear it. I knew this was the one who’d turned me into a murder pawn and rage subsumed me. I don’t need words to communicate with Callista and I was able to communicate my desire for her to dispel the magic on me, which she did. I threw my arm up and flung a fireball at the bitch, which I’m happy to say took her completely off guard and thoroughly ruined her very nice dress. Of course after she spent a few seconds stamping out flames and before I could put together another spell, she pointed at me, said something, and the world shut off.

People use the term “deafening silence”. It’s a thing. I could tell I wasn’t actually hearing any sort of sound, and yet the roar was all I could perceive. The darkness was much the same. I have little experience with true blindness. Lack of light isn’t much of an obstacle to my species - a biological adaptation to underground living. I opened my eyes as wide as I could and I saw nothing. Or at least I tried to open them. It didn’t feel right. My eyes didn’t feel right, like they were there only as a concept and not actually functioning as eyes, or not linked to what I was *seeing* in any case. Colors seemed to swim in front of my vision and eventually I was able to make out two distinct lighted areas, one “above” me for lack of a better term and one “below”. I could perceive both one these clearly despite them being 180 degrees apart from each other. They seemed to have people in them. One gave me a sense of foreboding, and I thought I could make out faces in a crowd. Goblins, humans, werewolves - the very ones I’d been a catspaw in the murder of. The other was brighter and there were fewer faces, most of them I didn’t recognize. It was where I wanted to be though, and they reached out to begin drawing me in.

At this point I’d drawn the reasonable conclusion that whatever Navenna had done to me killed me. For that I was happy that I seemed to be going to the light, and I knew well enough that death isn’t the end of existence - though… well those thoughts seemed to be fading the longer I drifted. They didn’t get a chance to completely desert me, because shortly thereafter I felt a much more urgent, bordering on violent pull, and I tore through reality like cheesecloth (that’s the best I can describe it, it was weird) lost consciousness for a second, and then found myself solidly back in my own body.

I felt strangely rejuvenated while at the same time like I had gotten blackout drunk the night before. Aches and pains, a throbbing headache, but also suffused with a radiant power. I took stock. Fingers worked, toes worked, everything in between seemed to respond, if a little weakly. I found myself draped over Rinpar’s brawny shoulders and not in the tower and longer. He had noticed me wiggling and jumped. I asked to bet set down against a wall. Morgrym returned Callista to my side, and I could feel exhaustion from her. I put two and two together and confirmed with her that she’d just literally raised me from the dead, which warranted a sincere thank you. She requested only that I do everything I can to make sure Navenna die. I assured her this was not something she needed to convince me to do. If I didn’t hate the drow bitch before today, I really, REALLY did now. I sat for a few minutes in quiet thought collecting myself while the majority of my companions spoke with the archbishop and his forces. 

When I felt strong enough to stand, I asked where Takdan was (upstairs in a bedroom). I placed Callista back in her harness on my back and Rinpar helped me climb the stairs, and I found her sitting in a bed Khauldera by her side. She couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were clouded over and clawed up worse than I had initially thought in the tower. I had Rinpar set me down on the bed and I placed a hand over them, curing the wounds to her skin but not the blindness. I believe I know a spell to cure that, but I will need to meditate to prepare myself to cast it. I promised to return the next day and urged her to get some rest. 

In the next room I caught up with Rinpar on just what had gone on. Apparently after striking me down, Navenna just teleported away, trusting the job of finishing off our party to a pair of invisible minions, which might have been enough had her departure not broken the holding charm on everyone. They won the fight with Callista allowing herself to be wielded by Morgrym for the duration, and she had apparently then immediately begun the process of resurrecting me, which took 15 minutes or so while the necessary power was gathered and aligned. She gathered the power from the tower itself , figuring to destroy it in the process lest Navenna think to return. As they rushed out they grabbed what they could, which wasn’t much compared to the sum total of books in the room. 

Morgrym managed to get all of the wooden figurines in his bag on the way out, reasoning that there was a good chance they were the missing casters. He ended up being right about that. They found some among the clergy who were able to undo the enchantments on these victims, but they were all blind just like Takden, and there weren’t enough healers to help them all today. We assured them they would be helped in the following days.

After that we went to the tavern. I drank well more than I should have - though that bar was considerably lower than I’m accustomed to thanks to the whole coming back from the dead thing - which, well, can anyone blame me? I stumbled/dragged myself back up to bed, or at least I think I did. I only remember the stairs. I woke up this morning to the sound of the townsfolk building a great wooden cover to the crevice the tower emerged from now that it had crumbled back down below ground level. Rinpar was with them, working as hard as anyone. I’ve taken a few more hours to gather my thoughts and write all this out, which has helped me feel a little better about everything that happened yesterday. I’ve meditated on the specialized healing magic I know to bring it close to my thoughts, and I’ve pondered the my revenge against Navenna, and perhaps more pointedly Callista’s. I’ll need to become more powerful. We all will. For now, time to go out and face the day.


	11. The Brother of Pash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erend has a rough day after being raised from the dead, but meets a new friend and picks up an easy job.

_Arodus 23, 1707 (RW: 2/24/2019):_

First place I went was breakfast for a nice strong cup of coffee, after which I went and found the priests who were doing the healing yesterday. I wasn’t actually able to break the curse on the wooden dolls, but I was able to cure their blindness once it was broken, which I did first for Takden as promised, then two more after that. The priests were unduly hostile towards me, so I don’t really know what got up their asses, and to be perfectly frank I don’t care. After the events of the last 48 hours I have just zero patience for childish bullshit, especially from people twice my age. I ran into another ratfolk on my way out who looked a lot like Pash, but smelled significantly better (very, very low bar). At the alchemist’s shop I tried to purchase more potion supplies and found she was too low on stock to sell me everything I wanted. I suppose I’m probably not the only one buying supplies right now, and she generally wouldn’t have any reason to keep a very large stock of the more advanced ingredients. She gave me what she had for free though, which was wholly unnecessary but very appreciated, and it took some of the bad taste out of my mouth from dealing with their holinesses. Still, the morning rudeness was hanging over my head a bit when combined with everything else.

I went back to the inn. Khauldera tried to stop me in the dining room. I gave her a look that indicated I really wasn’t in the mood and mumbled something about wanting to go work on some potions, and headed upstairs. I used a fair portion of the supplies to start up an Owl’s Wisdom potion. It was an 8 hour brew so it gave me an excuse to not leave the room. Around one of the “sit and wait while it simmers” steps, the ratperson I had seen earlier came up to see me. 

The rat man introduced himself as El’Rick and explained that he was Pash’s brother. He had been informed by a church courier of his brother’s situation, and arrived swiftly, being only a day’s ride away at the time. He’s an alchemist first and foremost, but he also works as a bounty hunter when there’s work to pay for supplies. His weapon of choice is a gun. Don’t see many of those around. They’re expensive and a bit finicky, but I suppose they’re alchemically interesting weapons so I can see how why he would favor them. El’Rick had noticed several people in town with the triskele mark on their hands and noted that it bore a marked similarity to a birthmark on his thigh. He’d asked my compatriots, and they had referred him to me. I was in a better mood by this point, thanks to brewing the potion. It’s simple work, but it gives you a definite and useful result, it’s almost impossible to get killed while doing it, and you can’t really rush it. It relaxes me. 

I relayed to El’rick the story of how we’d been branded with the marks and what I had found out about the temple in Elfein while we smoked some of his tobacco near a window. It was terrible stuff, the poorest quality that could reasonably be considered safe to smoke. Still it dissipated what was left of my tension. I gave him one of the fine cigars I had. Maybe I can inspire a little dignity in his choice of smoking habit. He told me he’d collected Pash’s belongings from the church, sans his coin which he made a donation of. He was heading to Witry for the trial, which is where we were headed anyways so he’d travel with us if there was no objection. I didn’t really see an issue with this. He left and I finished my potion before heading down for dinner. Morgrym had met a well-to-do looking human kid who had evidently boarded the wrong boat and ended up here. He was looking for escort back to Witry. Morgrym referred him to me. He offered us 200 gold pieces and seemed to think he was driving a hard bargain at this price. I accepted. Told him we would leave tomorrow morning. I updated the rest of the group on the plan and went upstairs. 

Finished with this entry and now I’m going to sleep.


	12. Ogres Before Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short entry as the party heads back towards Witry and gets ambushed in the night.

_Arodus 26, 1707 (RW: 2/24/2019):_

We left the next morning after a hearty breakfast. Rinpar was at peace to be riding his horse again, even if just alongside a carriage. The day’s journey was uneventful, and we set out our bedrolls at the side of the road next to the carriage. We let the noble sleep inside the carriage. Figured for what he was paying us it wasn’t worth a fuss. I brewed up a shielding potion for Morgrym around the campfire. A quick brew that should make him harder to hit with arrows, thrown weapons, etc.

We took watch in 2 hours shifts. I had the last one, and about halfway through I heard a hell of a racket coming from across the road. Footsteps crashing through the brush, way too big to be human, and voices talking loudly in a language I didn’t know. They were drawing closer. I ran over to the sleeping party and roused them all, keeping an eye across the road. No time to don armor, but Rinpar grabbed his shield and I quickly blessed us all as the first large ogroid broke through the treeline, followed shortly by 3 friends. Morgrym spoke their language (giant), but they aren’t smart creatures and didn’t have much to say. He did determine that they expected to make dinner out of us, which was all we really needed to know. I slapped a wrathful mantle onto Khauldera as she charged forward, and then hurled a fireball into the center of the group, far enough back to avoid scorching her. I swear I yelled something clever but damned if I can remember what it was.

The fireball instantly killed the target nearest it’s detonation point. The other two around the same size as him were badly burned and seemed to be starting to form a concept of reconsidering their life choices, which the one didn’t get a chance to do as Morgrym finished him with an axe blow to the abdomen. The biggest one seemed injured, but he made a fair effort of shaking it off. Khauldera put an end to his stoicism by introducing her blade to his knee, and I blasted a ray of the sun’s fury into his chest before El’rick gunned him down. The 4th finished his reconsideration, turned around, and ran like hell. Morgrym and El’Rick happened to know that teeth from creatures like this sold for good coin as alchemical ingredients, so we harvested the corpses. 67 teeth in total. 

The rest of the journey was uneventful and we arrive in Midle mid afternoon today. We took lodging and I used the few hours before dinner to brew up a barrier potion for Khauldera that will give a nasty jolt to anything that hits her. Morgrym managed to sell some of the teeth at the local apothecary for a tidy sum of gold, and traded some more for a couple potions. I walked around town looking for the blacksmith, which took me way longer than it should have, and found him just as he was closing up shop. He was not interested in doing business. I had dinner and went back to brew another barrier potion, this one I’ll give to Rinpar in the morning.


	13. Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party arrives back home in Witry and gets caught up with a few local events that happened while they were away.

_Rova 1, 1707 (RW: 3/10/2019):_

Back in Witry, and hell if it doesn’t feel good to be home. Or at least the closest thing I’ve had to home in a couple decades. We probably won’t be staying all that long, but we decided to rest at least a bit, figure out our next move, and stock up on some supplies. It’s been most of a week since I wrote last, so I’ll catch up here.

The morning after my last entry I went down to the tavern for some bacon and eggs. I spoke with Khauldera over breakfast and found out that Rinpar had left very early in the morning. He sent a brief note saying he had gotten a lead on the bandit who killed his mentor and didn’t expect us to abandon our god-given quest to help him with his personal vengeance, so he and his horse rode off at once. She was not happy at this and said she’s like to punch him a second time if she ever sees him again. I had always wondered how long he’d last, personally. Ultimately his journey was not ours.

As we left the tavern we noticed a crowd gathered, so we went over to discover... a pig playing a lute in the street. The instrument was specially designed for his anatomy and he had a hat for people to throw coins in. Now I’ve never seen anything like that, and I threw 5 silver into the hat, because aside from the wonder of being a lute-playing pig he wasn’t even half bad. When he finished, he picked up the hat with his earnings and waddled off. We talked to some of the gathered folk and they said the pig was out several times a week playing, and that he belonged to an older fellow known by the townsfolk as Old Silver Sage. They said one of Sage’s sons would usually come by shortly after the pig left to collect the lute. We wanted to meet this fellow, so we grabbed the lute, figuring we would save his son the trip, and trouped off to see him.

Silver Sage told us how he’d wanted to retire early, and so he had trained the pig to play music and earn him money, this took a long time naturally. He was thinking of training some squirrels, but we noted that they don’t have very long lifespans. Khauldera told him that in the lands to the south, there were beautiful birds, some of whom could even speak, and that lived for many years. I think we may have unintentionally convinced him to move. I noticed a fair supply of potion ingredients, and offered to buy some (resistance and guidance potions; small benefits, quick to brew, give me something to do at night) which Morgrym picked the tab for, nicely enough. We left town in the mid to late morning.

The day’s journey was more or less uneventful. El’Rick stayed in the carriage all day with a severe stomachache that made him essentially a nonentity except when we occasionally had to stop so he could run off the trail for an emergency shit. The noble boy, Percy, wisely rode up front next to the driver. We discussed a new watch rotation while on the road, which would also involve staggering sleep schedules a bit more. This would allow us to keep 2 armored guards on watch through most the night without anyone being deprived of sleep. Pursuant to this, I removed my armor and went to sleep immediately after camp was made, set to join Khauldera in the second half of the first watch and then stay up the rest of the night with Morgrym. And wouldn’t you know it, but that 2 hour window is when an arumvorax decided to drop by for dinner.

We’re lucky she even heard it. I think it was young and not all that skilled at stalking yet. The adults excel at it, being giant magical 8 legged cats. She got Morgrym awake and he was able to wake me just in time for it to sink its teeth into my ass, though it abandoned the bite pretty quickly when she introduced it to the edge of her blade. The short scuffle that followed involved me finding out that fire didn’t work very well against them, hammers didn’t work very well, and probably due to the combination of the circumstances plaguing me more than any natural ability of the thing, I wasn’t even able to influence its mind with magic. It took a special interest in me, probably because I was the only one it had managed to substantially wound, and thus it had tasted my blood. At one point I ended up hobbling over and - I’m not going to bother trying to dress it up - cowering behind Khauldera for a few seconds so I could heal myself. Her and Morgrym sliced it up enough that it eventually let go of the concept of dinner and embraced survival. I collapsed against the wagon and channelled power to heal our injuries, which had been ¾ inflicted onto me.

The rest of the night was uneventful and I took a brief nap in the morning once we got underway to clear my mind before meditating on my spells for the day. Sometime in the afternoon we heard a commotion up ahead and saw a blink dog savaging a baby displacer beast. Under any circumstance animals will be animals, but I happened to know that blink dogs are creatures born of good, the opposite of the displacers beasts which are omnicidal monsters trying to kill everything they set their eyes on. We didn’t intervene until 2 adults showed up, presumably to protect their young. The one went for the dog, the other for us. Morgrym and Khauldera took the one coming for us with little issue and I went to help the dog. I let off a fireball in such a way that I managed to scorch both the adults and nothing else aside from some grass, and then commanded through a magical conduit and sheer force of will to leave the dog and approach me, which it did. At this point I smashed it upside the head with Callista. It wasn’t exactly fair, but sportsmanship gets you killed and I’ve had quite enough of that for the foreseeable future. The dog disappeared after the fight and we cut the tentacles off the displacers and lashed them to the top of the carriage to dry in the sun for later sale.

When we got close enough to Balboney for the magical field allowing animals to speak to take effect, we startled the hell out of Percival by asking his horse a question which it responded to. That was a good laugh. Not being on quite so strict a time limit as last time we came through, we decided to investigate the tower. Proctor’s Place of Polymorphy it was called, and we met Proctor right away. He seemed kind enough, told us that he had established this town as a refuge for those of human-adjacent animal races (Kitsune, Grippli, Catfolk, etc), which are often mistreated elsewhere. They made some money selling magical items as well in their shop. Mostly wands. I wandered down there to browse the stock, but didn’t see anything of particular interest, at least not that we could afford without nearly bankrupting ourselves. 

While Morgrym was trying to charm his way under the blouse of Proctor’s assistant, I headed out to the alchemist shop to see about some silver dust. They had what I wanted and traded in my remaining silver ore from the mine over a month ago for credit towards my purchase. I paid for a room, dinner, and a bath at the inn and spent some time brewing up a barrier potion for Khauldera. In the morning Morgrym swaggered in and gave me some ingredients he had purchased, asked if I would make him a charisma potion out of them. Sure. I’m not sure how Mitra feels about me using the power he grants to get Morgrym laid, but on the balance I’m guessing it’s something he’ll tolerate. A respectable amount of hedonism has always been acceptable in church doctrine, from what I’ve read. Morgrym might take it a little beyond respectable, but he’s not hurting anyone by it and he does more good in the world than harm.

We went to leave for Witry, and we found our pigs missing. El’Rick was supposed to be watching them and caring for them but I guess he was too ill yet, so they’d gone off and found someone’s larder to raid. Dug right under his door and cleared him out. I apologized and paid him for the damages. Khauldera scolded the pigs and Morgrym made some ill-advised jokes about turning them into bacon, at which they begged to be allowed to stay in Balboney where animals aren’t really slaughtered for obvious reasons. We left them with the elf bartender from the morning after she offered to take them in, and we bid them farewell. The rest of the trip to Witry was uneventful.

As we arrived in Witry something reminded of our trip to the mines, which reminded us of the spiders we fought, which reminded us of the spider eggs that Pash had for some godforsaken reason grabbed, which panicked us and caused us to dig through El’rick’s sack where he had put Pash’s possessions and find the eggsack now pulsing with the movement of hundreds of tiny spiders getting ready to hatch. I darted into a pottery shop and purchased a jar with a tight lid to throw the egg sac into. In a possibly misguided impulse I then took it to the alchemist’s shop to see if it was worth anything. It wasn’t, and before I got the chance to take it out back and burn it, Morgrym grabbed it and used an alchemist’s fire bomb on it. I get the impression he’s a bit arachnophobic. We did go back to the shop and sell our now well-dried displacer tentacles for a tidy 400 gold pieces, which divided nicely among the 4 of us. Percival paid us and departed with some city guardsmen for the Istarra estate.

A messenger found us and told us that Dr. Tadbert Mistletoe at the university wanted to see us as soon as possible, and it was still mid-afternoon so we headed over. They recognized our motley crew at the front desk and showed us back. The professor was thrilled that we’d finally shown back up and immediately took us out back, explaining along the way that the egg we’d left with him had grown in size for some time before hatching, after which the creature inside had continued to grow for some time longer. We arrived at a stable near of of the edges of the garden and found a 7 foot tall duck, which barely phased us after the week we’d had. Tadbert told us that the duck ate a prodigious amount of corn and seemed keen to know what we were going to do about that, which, I mean, he wanted the egg so I fail to see how this is our problem to solve now. Though I suppose we did say we were only letting him borrow it to study. 

He said they had sexed the duck as male, so when it laid an egg right in front of us, we were all reasonably a bit surprised. Morgrym went over to investigate the egg and it cracked open as soon as he picked it up, revealing a sizable emerald. Due to the angle he was standing at the professor couldn’t see the emerald, and Morgrym immediately pocketed it. He’s trying to deny even to me that he has it, which is fucking ludicrous because I saw the damn thing. I’ll just keep ignoring his attempts to lie about it until he comes clean. I’m not telling the university, mind, because if this is a common occurrence it could prove quite lucrative. More money means better equipment. Better equipment means we’re less likely to die. I’m in favor of not dying. That and the duck is probably big enough to ride, so that could be an interesting and potentially useful addition to the party. A swimming, flying mount that shits emeralds. Sounds like a winning proposition to me.

After that there wasn’t much to do but head home. I met Delphaus the estate and tossed him the sack of 550 gold I owed him for my new armor, which he had had placed in my quarters. We sat down in the den to catch up on events. We learned word had arrived by carrier pigeon that Pash had gone missing and he wondered if we had anything to do with it, which we didn’t. I mentioned Percy who I assumed was a relative of his fiancee Aliss, and told him that the kid seemed nice if naive, but really needs to learn the value of a gold coin. He informed me somewhat stunned, that Percy was the crown prince of the kingdom. I feel like I should have known that….. Well anyways, I’m not his subject, and I wasn’t exactly an ass to him besides. When Delphaus acted incredulous that we took the full 200 gold for the escort mission I clapped back that I nearly had my throat torn out for the trouble, which chastened him. Not like we plan to use the money to set up and live a cushy life anyways. Add to that that it makes my statement of him needing to learn the value of gold even more relevant. A king that doesn’t know the basics of his own economy is a shit king.

Delphaus told us he’d found some information in old books about the last time agents of Mitra were called and the quest they undertook. He would send the relevant volumes to my quarters. After all that, I’m now going to enjoy a night in my own bed.


	14. Errands by Erend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erend run some errands in Witry, makes a startling discovery about Morgrym, and adds a new tool to his magical arsenal

_Rova 4, 1707 (RW: In Between Sessions):_

Spent the last several days getting some errands and research done. I’ve had some niggling worries in the back of my mind since we left Masalworth about the nature of lycanthropy and whether I actually would have been able to remove it from Morgrym if he had been infected, so I hit the books. The information wasn’t hard to find and I’m glad I did, because what I found was that I’m not nearly powerful enough to cure that particular blood curse, which meant if he has it, he’s a ticking timebomb with a detonator set to the date of the next full moon. The good news was that I should easily be able to detect it with the knowledge I have now. I did that and found out that he is in fact infected.

I had also discovered that there is an alternate cure which doesn’t require powerful magic, but it involves drinking wolfsbane poison. That could easily kill more fragile individuals. I can bolster him with magic, which combined his natural biological resistance to poison and the general fact that he’s young and healthy should hopefully allow him to get through the ordeal without more than a few days in a weakened state. We have several weeks until the next full moon, but no point in delaying so I explained this all to him and suggested we get started in sourcing the poison immediately. He asked if I’d found anything related to controlling the power, an idea no doubt born of the control the wolves in the Masalworth tower seemed to have (though my understanding is that they were likely born that way and therefore had a much greater degree of agency over it). 

It happened that I had come across such info. Most people didn’t prefer to keep the curse given a choice, but some learn to control their shape changes through meditation, and can even keep themselves in check during a full moon. They’re still prone to flying into a blood frenzy and attacking anything in sight if they suffer substantial injury though. This becomes less likely the better they learn to discipline their mind too, but it’s a tough hill to climb. I don’t know. I tend to tread closer to the line of caution in matters like this, but I guess I’m willing to take the risk. I ended up directing him to the relevant volumes and telling him to know them well, because if I end up with another chunk torn out of my ass and for no good reason this time, I’m not going to be happy. And I know from a lot of experience that fire is one of the few things that can harm werewolves perfectly well. Could get ugly. I added silver chain to my shopping list too, and I’ll keep an eye out for wolfsbane in the wild in case we need it. My reading tells me it grows mostly on mountains.This all resolved before or around lunch on the 2nd.

I dropped the rocks I had grabbed in the tower off in my room, then went shopping. I stocked the wagon with 2 weeks worth of trail rations for a party of 4, a couple of shovels and pickaxes, more lamp oil, and some blankets now that winter is coming. I also stopped by the silversmith we had helped with his mine and asked if he could make us some silver alloy chains since Morgrym is going to go ahead with this “control the beast” thing. I have a feeling we’ll need them. I put the order in and told them Morgrym should be by to pay for them and pick them up. I sold the bloodstone I had in my bag, don’t even remember where I got it. Distributed the profits amongst our party. Then I went to the temple to pray for the werewolves we had unwittingly murdered in Masalworth may their souls find peace. I finished the day with a few more potions before bed.

Apart from heading to the shop for some supplies and the daily meals, I spent the working portion of the next 2 days in my room consumed by a little project I’ve had in mind for several weeks now. See, while there are definite advantages to channeling divine magic, one of the downsides is the need for a holy symbol - something that can anchor you god’s power on you and allow it to flow through your will. My ancestral ring serves this purpose. If I were to lose it however I would be in a bad way. And that’s not taking into account situations where I may want to remove it, few and far between as they may be (I’ve heard of monsters that can dissolve metal with a touch, and I don’t know if that includes adamantine or not). I’ve been spending some of my downtime reading up on tattoos, and I even bought an artisan’s kit for this purpose in Nyuyota. Tattoo magic in general interests me, and this would be a good place to start, since the tattoo itself isn’t really magical, but some of the principles are the same. I ran out on the morning of the 3rd to get some ink that could survive having magical power pushed through it - average everyday ink almost immediately breaks down when put to this test. I then spent about 16 hours over the next two days with a needle in my right hand repeatedly and shallowly stabbing myself in my left palm. It hurt like hell at first but after an hour or so I became inured to the pain. 

The result is a pretty fine looking sigil of Mitra the Fire Undying in my left palm. Normally tattooed skin would take time to heal, but what better way to test my work than to use it to heal the skin it was imprinted on? Resounding success. My hand felt especially warm when I did this, which was interesting. That’s my usual casting hand, but actually having the focus embedded in my skin seems amplify the feeling of the spell. Hope that doesn’t get too painful with higher level magic and spells that are meant to harm rather than heal. Time will tell.


	15. New Friends and Piles of Gobliny Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El'Rick is still ill, but Erend and the rest of the crew meet a paladin and his bardic friend, teaming up to kill some goblins and retrieve a magic bottle.

_Rova 6, 1707 (RW: 3/17/2019):_

I’m happy to report even more resounding success. I had no issues using my new tattooed symbol out in the real world. The physical side effects for my more powerful spells were starting to approach discomfort, but it’s got a ways to go before it becomes an issue, and if I ever NEED to use it for something, any amount of pain will surely be better than whatever alternative there is.

We all met at the pub yesterday morning (all except for El’Rick , who was still recovering from whatever was ailing him), having had a few days to tend to our personal business in town and get some much needed rest. At the bulletin board we met a fellow dwarf bedecked in the garb of a Mitran paladin and his travelling companion, a gangly half-orc with a lute. Bard seems an odd choice of profession for a half-orc, but then our most accomplished fighter is a 5 foot nothing human woman who pays prostitutes a small fortune to cuddle with her, so what do I know?

These two were on a leisure day, and we found our eyes drawn to the same posting: a high quality but beaten up piece of paper with a crude map drawn upon it. Writing on the page claimed there were rumors of an efreeti bottle, and that this map would take us to it. Sounded exciting, useful too. We have a quest to be on of course, but an artifact like that could be a significant boon. It crossed my mind as odd that someone would just leave directions to such a valuable magical item on a public bulletin board like this, but I had one of those feelings that said we should pursue it. 

Since we were all interested, and the wilds had seemed especially dangerous lately, we proposed to join up with the other two.The paladin and bard, Bardoc and Kogu respectively, thought this was a fine idea. The map led southwest of witry towards the nearest peak of the Bayraines, something of an outlier as regard to the mountain range as a whole but still tall enough to have a snowcap. We stuck to the road for a short time but then had to pull off to follow a stream branching off from the main river (the stream wasn’t on any other map I had ever seen), and we didn’t get too far off of that before the terrain became simply impassable to horse and carriage. We tied up the horses with feed bags and in range of the water to keep them from going hungry or thirsty.

We followed the stream, noting some giant tracks along the way, until it flowed into a pool about 20ft across and oblong. This was fed on the other side by a small waterfall which I guessed was composed of runoff from the nearby mountain that we were now more or less at the base of. There was no outlet, so my guess is it drained underground. The map noted the waterfall and indicated we needed to pass under it. We moved around the pool and found ourselves on the edge of a clearing across which there was a tunnel leading up and under the waterfall. We saw bones in the clearing proper, and what looked to be more inside the tunnel although it was too far away to say for sure. Khauldera’s sharp eye noticed a pair of hill giants with rather large rocks primed to throw at us from the cliff with the flowing water. That explained the bones then. Nobody but Morgrym spoke giant, so diplomacy was already an iffy proposition even before he started screaming insults about their sisters, which he did ostensibly to get them to come down and fight us directly where we could make better use of our mostly close ranged weapons. Khauldera contributed by simply matching the giants’ incoherent screams with her own.

We charged into the middle of the clearing, the goal being to get at an angle where they couldn’t huck rocks at us. It worked, though a couple people took hits while sprinting to safety. It seemed to just make Khauldera angry. Morgrym responded by implying the giants threw like women. Once rock throwing was off the table as a tactic, the giants came down to fight us. My personal highlights include the fire elemental I summoned that lit one giant on fire every time he hit it (which he kept doing because he wasn’t very smart) and then the solid kneecapping I gave to the other with Callista in hand. Morgrym fought well, and Khauldera did what she does. Bardoc impressed me, always maneuvering to outflank the enemy wherever possible, a fighting style I recognize from my time at the sun temple in southeastern Etrela. Kogu played his lute in that odd way that bards do, where you find your sword always swinging a bit more accurately and cutting a bit more deeply. Afterwards, we healed and looted. The bones now that we got a closer look at them were humanoid, but of small stature and odd proportion. Gobins, best guess.

The star piece of loot was a dwarven waraxe of exceeding craftsmanship and wrought of cold iron. I didn’t mention it to anyone else but I recognized the maker’s mark - it had come from my home kingdom. This sort of weapon was common for our patrols to wield, but they wouldn’t have given something this nice to a new recruit, which means the giants must have killed an experienced warrior in order to obtain it. Leaving their brutalized and charred corpses to bloat in the sun is better treatment than I’m sure they gave my kinsman.

I could have made a claim on the axe, but I’m rather tied to Callista and so Morgrym was the logical recipient. We found a stone of alarm too. Morgrym got his very large cat Luci to run it back and attach it to our carriage in case anyone wandering through decided to take the opportunity for some thieving. True the alarm wouldn’t likely reach us this far away and we wouldn’t be able to do much if it did, but the would-be thief wouldn’t know that. 

Up past the waterfall we found a cave opening as specified at the destination point on the map. It was easily large enough to pass through, though only on one’s belly. Bardoc took point with his shield out in front of him, but there was no danger in the passage. We all got through and proceeded single file down a 50 foot pitch black tunnel (appeared to have been dug out) which Kogu lit up with a simple spell of his for the benefit of Khauldera, who is still the only one amongst our party that can’t see in the dark. She took point and as she rounded the corner up ahead he saw two goblins down another 20 feet or so of hallway just inside a large cavern, which appeared to be naturally formed. They saw her, and one immediately took off. The other stood to fight, which got it mauled to death by Luci. Between where we turned the corner and where the goblin died, two more rooms branched off the tunnel. We searched them, and found them to simply be a store room and a kitchen.

The goblin that had fled quickly returned surrounded by 6 allies, 2 of them riding goblin dogs. I threw a fireball spell at them and killed both mounts, one of the riders, and all but one of the footsoldiers he had brought. The runner charged me and took a swing, which pitifully clanged off my armor and left a small cut on my arm. I returned his fervor with a hammer blow to the side of the head as everyone else finished the rest of his party. 

They must have been living here for some time judging by the stockpile they had. I’m guessing they were stealing from the giants’ stash though because some of the equipment they were stockpiling was way too good to have been carried by anyone I’d judge them capable of winning a skirmish against. On the other hand, a sneak attack and sheer numbers can do wonders. The giants appeared to have been eating them though, so they obviously came into contact at some point or another. In any case there were some very nice bows, a lot of well made goblin weapons (probably one of their number was what counts as a talented craftsman for unintelligent little savages), and, surprisingly, a bag of holding. Not a cheap one either, the 2nd tier up. Should be able to hold about 500lb. Very, very useful thing to have around. There was a bone throne, which morgrym lit on fire. And here I thought I was a pyromaniac.

The room they came out of, which was the only way to proceed deeper into the caves, was an absolutely disgusting bedchamber. The smell was so vile I found myself reconsidering the merit of Morgrym’s little throne fire. Shortly after entering the bedroom, we heard an explosion of goblin laughter followed 10 seconds later by a booming voice saying “Your wish is granted”. Little bastards must have gotten to the bottle before us, gods only know how. We peeked into the next room and saw no efreeti, just an empty bottle. What there was though was an absurd amount of gold heaped across an entire wall of the chamber, and a 10 foot tall goblin with crystalline protrusions coming out of his body plus some some wicked looking claws made of the same crystal substance. He looked angry, and the goblins around him, who didn’t look much tougher than those we’d just roasted, looked like they’d just had their laughter abruptly cut off. There was one larger than the others who I’d place as the chief based on his clothing and gear.

Well, there was a job to be finished now. Killing goblins is a public service anyways, and nobody wanted to leave that much gold in their hands. If they managed to use it at all, nothing good would come of it. We strategized briefly, and with great effort I managed to light off another fireball into the room at the start of the battle, but it didn’t have the same searing effect as the last one, just softened them up a bit, only killed two. Morgrym and Luci darted to the right of the big one to deal with some of the smaller combatants, Bardoc and Khauldera moved left to deal with the chieftain. Kogu and I stayed in the doorway to provide support by way of songs and spells. The fight was rough, and several of our number got beaten up pretty badly. Khauldera was an absolute monster, standing toe to toe first with the chieftain and then more impressively with the giant crystal monster. The crystal one was the last to fall, and most of his protrusions crumbled to dust when he did. 

Bardoc and I set about healing everyone while Morgrym went over to the gold-stacked wall and began just dragging the bag of holding through it, collecting coin. When we later got a chance to count, we summed it out to about 20k pieces. Good thing for that bag. We found a handy haversack on the chieftain, sort of a lesser bag of holding and specialized for quick item retrieval. There was a substantial amount of jewels too, which I took myself to appraise and sell. Later netted just shy of 4500 gold for those too. We split all the proceeds equally, as per usual. Khauldera collected ears from the goblins. She mentioned that she’d seen a bounty notice on the bulletin board. We salvaged a lot of other equipment too, mostly just stuff to sell. A few people got new bows, I found a campfire bead, which is an item that’s useful but I mostly just have a child-like glee at the concept of. I sold the rest of the equipment for several thousand more gp and distributed evenly.

After all that was said and done, Bardoc and Kogu asked to travel with us. Bardoc’s assignment for the church is such that he has a lot of freedom of movement. Sounded good to us. Our goals should align with the church’s on a high level, and we tend to do a lot of fighting, which they’ve proven themselves quite capable at. I damn sure didn’t mind having a few other magically inclined folks around either.

We got back to Witry near midnight and all crashed hard. This morning we were awoken by a messenger from Delphaus. We rounded up El’Rick who was finally feeling better and went to speak with him. Evidently, Pash is still missing and Delphaus has been commanded to either get sworn written statements from us indicating we know nothing about it (or indicating what we do know), or remand us into church custody. None of us like that second option, including him. I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t react violently if he tried, and my reaction would likely be the most tempered of everyone there’s. But of course that wasn’t necessary. We agreed to make the statements and have them to him shortly.

All feeling kind of bad for El’Rick having missed yesterday’s adventure and the associated windfall, so we pitched in to buy him a new musket, a sort of long gun with better accuracy at range and better projectile velocity than the pistols he uses. Hopefully something that he’ll enjoy and find useful. It took me the better part of the morning to find the only shop in Witry that had one. Like I said, not all that common a weapon. It’s a nice piece though. I don’t know much about firearms, but I know metal and this is premium quality.

Bardoc had noticed me using my tattooed holy symbol and asked me about it. I told him I could do one for him as well, which he agreed we would have to do sometime soon. It’s early afternoon now. I’d like to see if I can chase down the author of that map.


	16. An Escort Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the party locates the merchant who posted the efreeti bottle notice, they're offered a job to escort him, conveniently, in the direction they were heading anyways.

_Rova 18, 1707 (RW: 3/24/2019):_

Been a while since I wrote last. Not all that much has happened of note, at least not compared to the standard of normal I’ve become accustomed to. After my last entry I had a brief conversation with Callista about getting the fire opal set into her. I’m not really sure how things like bodily autonomy and pain translate on to sentient weapons of war, so I figured it was best to ask. She was all for the idea, so I took her to the Curious Forge, the place where I had Morgrym’s chains made; they also deal in creating and modifying magic weapons. The owner quoted me two days to complete the work and a fee of over 4500 gold. The look on my face must have been something, because he hastily explained that making even mundane changes to magical weapons requires a great deal of expertise and materials. He then told me that this process would take him ¾ of the way to a full upgrade of her magical properties, and that for a flat 6k he could just do that instead and would set the gem for free during the process. Callista signalled to me that she was very much on board with this idea, so I left her with him, paid, and took a regular old hammer with me as a loaner just in case.

We spent the rest of the day tracking down the person who left the note. We were able to determine the region it came from based on the type of ink and paper which gave us a rough idea what to ask around for (clothes, complexion, accent etc). The individual who wrote it didn’t prove very difficult to track down at all. His name was Rotavem Mirlizram, an Iesparian merchant from the city of Hertsbury. He explained that he had been ambushed by goblins in the night on his way to Witry, who stole the lamp. They had tracked them to the cave the next day, but ran into the same giants we did and did not fare quite so well. We returned the empty bottle to him with apologies that we couldn’t have recovered it sooner, and he asked if we were interested in a job escorting him back to Hertsbury. We agreed. It’s a long journey but it’s in the direction of our only lead on the origin of the symbol we have on our hands. Pays pretty decent too. 5 gold per person per day, room and board whenever we’re in a town. Normally his journey would take him around the Gallencaster ridge and up into Mikta, but he believes with our escort he can cut his journey in half by going through it. It’s more dangerous, but it will take around a month off the trip.

He drew up a contract and we negotiated a clause about keeping the valuables from anything we killed, basically hazard pay. Rotavem agreed to this on the condition he was cut in for 10%. That seemed reasonable, so the contracts were signed and we departed in 3 days time. I spent most of the ensuing 72 hours brewing potions. I picked up Callista, who was ecstatic to now have access to more of her powers from when she was alive. Someone went and purchased a saddle for the duck, as well as the equipment to hitch it up to our carriage. Not entirely sure how that’s going to work, but I was cloistered in my room and wasn’t really part of the discussion. The duck did lay another egg. This one had a small wooden figurine of Khauldera in it. So it doesn’t just lay emeralds. I have a feeling this is going to get weird.

I found time to go to a store before we left and purchase supplies for creating spell scrolls. Mostly velum and special inks. It’s a similar process to magical tattooing, though much more commonly done. You can never be too prepared. We departed as scheduled.

The next 5 days went entirely uneventfully and we arrived in Brokeford. The local inn was a rustic and cozy place with a friendly old bartender. Morgrym and I decided to hit the bath, which was surprisingly nice for the size of the town - the owner obviously took pride in it. Bardoc quickly became engrossed in a conversation with her over the spear she was using as a walking stick. El’rick took a local news publication into the privy, and everyone else went to the bar for food and drink. While in the bath Morgrym asked me about the tattoo on my back, which he’d never noticed before. I replied that I didn’t have a tattoo on my back, to which he said I most certainly did, and traced it onto a sheet of paper. More weird. I didn’t recognize the region. Geography has never been a strongsuit of mine. 

I’d gotten the impression Kogu is well educated about a great many subjects, so I approached him with the paper. He was able to narrow it down to two general regions, both points where the borders of three countries meet. One was the meeting point of Etrela, Iesparia, and Ofrein, the other Etrela, Iesparia, and Skiojan. Doesn’t really tell me much. I’ll speculate on it over the coming weeks and see what I come up with. Any further conversation we may have had was interrupted by El’Rick doing a cannonball into the bath, which nearly got us thrown out of the inn. I’ll say this right now: I’m not dealing with another Pash, and I doubt Khauldera or Morgrym are willing to either. Bardoc, despite his genuine good naturedness, also doesn’t strike me as someone with a high bullshit tolerance. I don’t know how long El’Rick has lived on the fringes of civilized society but I doubt he’s interacted so little that he doesn’t know what the lowest standard of appropriate behavior is. So if in 3 months I’m doubting myself after turning him over to rot in a prison cell for something he’s done, or leaving him to get killed because he robbed the wrong person, I’ll be able to look back on this journal entry and tell myself it was a long time coming.

The caravan departed the next morning on schedule, but about halfway through the day we were stopped short by roaming earth elementals. They weren’t immediately hostile, but they didn’t look terrible friendly either. Unlike with the giants however, I actually do speak a functional amount of Terran. I inquired as to their purpose and found out they were simply looking for their missing… well the term they used translates directly to “little one”, and I’m not sure if Terran actually has a word for child, but I assume they were talking about their child or at least the closest approximation as it relates to elementals. I offered our assistance and had them lead us to where they last saw it. Morgrym has a talent for tracking and was able to pick up the trail without much effort. We followed it to a nest up on a cliffside where two fork-tailed wyverns immediately attacked us and blinded half the party including me with flame breath. Roasted us pretty good, though my affinity for fire protected me somewhat. 

The mistake the wyverns made was landing after their fire attack. I suspect they thought us to be easy targets. Callista was able to cure the blindness from Khauldera, who coordinated an assault on one of them with half of the party, while the large elementals laid a beatdown on the other. She severed the first one’s head and El’rick finished the 2nd with a shot from his pistol. The skirmish wasn’t the shitshow that it’s opening would have suggested, largely because I didn’t need to see to be able to heal everyone around me, and Kogu didn’t need to be able to see to play his music.

The elementals found their little one and left us some jewels by way of thanks. Khauldera took the eggs from the Wyvern nest. Not sure what she plans to do with them. We got back down to the road and proceeded on our way. The duck laid an egg that burst open to release a cloud of poison gas, burning everybody’s lungs. I don’t like the way these eggs are trending. We camped outside the passage Rotavem had mentioned, the one going through into the Gallancaster ridge. We noted a fort nearby that I recognized as Yagnet’s Hold, one of the fortresses built by my ancestors when they completed their Quest for Sky. Kogu informed me that now it’s home to giants, orcs, and cyclops that raid the local villages. The entire region lives in fear of it. There was brief talk about assaulting it, but we’d need a plan and of course we are on the escort job. We’ll discuss further in the morning.


	17. Orcs Attack!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camp gets hit in the night by a raiding party of orcs and the caravan enters the mountain range a bit sooner than they had planned to, finding expected and unexpected dangers.

_Rova 22, 1707 (RW: 3/31/2019):_

When we woke the morning after my last entry, I had a brief discussion with Rotavem. I requested a halt of one day outside this cave, since I know something of the types of creatures that dwell under the mountains and we would benefit from a day of preparation. He didn’t argue, and so we spent the day maintaining our equipment, resting, and making miscellaneous preparations. I made an attempt at scribing the Debilitating Portent spell onto a scroll, which I think I succeeded at. If I failed I’m, sure I’ll find out at the worst possible moment. I also made some holy water and charged the staff we’d gotten from Roswhen’s castle with a Remove Disease spell. Due to the nature of the thing, you actually would have to smack someone with it to discharge the spell, and so I named it the Staff of Percussive Maintenance, a term you hear semi-often if you spend any time around people that work with mechanical contraptions. Sometimes you just have to hit things to make them work right again.

That night we kept a normal watch as we slept and were awoken in the early morning by an Orc raiding party with a gorthek war beast. Not having my armor on, I stayed inside the carriage where I’d been sleeping and slung magic from cover. The chief and the gorthuk charged our camp, but I was able to cut off the rest of the footsoldiers with a wall of flame, forcing them to go around and bunching them up nicely for a fireball. Bardoc, Khauldera, and Morgrym took on the chief and his pet while El’Rick provided support from the top of the carriage and Kogu played his lute. The last several footsoldiers ran away after seeing their entire battlegroup fall inside of 40 seconds and Khauldera rip the heart from their boss’s chest. That said, Bardoc got torn up pretty badly, and we decided it would be prudent to break camp and move into the cave lest the orcs send another raiding party. We did take the time to loot their corpses before we left. Notably, there was a very nice set of magically enhanced full plate, a diamond worth the better part of 1k gold pieces, and some valuable alchemical materials in the gorthek horn that El’Rick hadn’t blown to pieces.

We travelled a full day’s journey into the cave, though we ended up stopping earlier than usual due to our early start. The first night passed uneventfully. The next day we were set upon by cave fishers, which were more of major annoyance than a threat as they walked on the ceiling and had to be brought down before they could be easily killed. They even snagged a few of us and pulled us into the air, but it didn’t save them once we took away their positional advantage. Morgrym harvested their Chitin, which he said we could sell. We noted a mithral vein in the wall.

That night we kept an uneventful watch, and yet in the morning found two of Rotavem’s men missing. We tracked footprints leading away from the camp, but they ended at a solid wall of stone. After beating on it with pickaxes for a while and finding it quite solid, Bardoc made me feel stupid by suggesting we try detecting magic. I did that and identified a conjuration aura, which would be consistent with somebody reaching this spot and teleporting away. There was no other way to proceed, so we kept pushing forward, hoping to come across a clue to their location. Nothing yet, and I need to go to sleep early so I am rested in time to take last watch. Feeling some trepidation about sleeping.


	18. Deeper, Deeper, and Out the Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party learns what's been lurking in the dark.

_Rova 26, 1707 (RW: 3/31/2019 & 4/30/2019):_

The night of my last entry all our guards fell asleep on duty, something that’s never happened before. We awoke in the morning feeling like we’d been drugged and found Khauldera missing. On top of that, there were small incisions in several of us and there was some….. thing writhing under the skin of my left forearm, which I still shudder to think about. I slammed my arm down on the table and handed my silver dagger to Morgrym who swiftly excised it, which hurt one hell of a lot. A healing spell on the wounds left no apparent lasting harm. Other people had the same creatures (some sort of slugs) on their bodies, but not in them as far as we could tell. All were removed and smashed on the stone floor.

We left the wagons for the time being and got Khauldera’s wolf Geralt (She found him as a pup in the woods outside Nyuyota) to track her, which we had a lot more luck with than the footprints we’d relied on the day previous. This brought us to a compound where we found 2 tied up humans, 3 unconscious orcs, and a handful of derro who were less than pleased to see us. We were on the warpath now though, and we went through them with little more than a 30 second delay, culminating in a blow from Callista that likely sent their strongest fighter’s brain out through his ass. Several had had extra limbs grafted on and moved more like insects than men. I’ve heard stories of derro fleshcraft but never seen it in person before now. Bardoc slit the throats of the orc captives and we freed the humans, who were happy to join Rotavem and his party as they retreated to the carriages leaving us to continue our furious advance.

Past a set of stairs, we entered a hallway with many doors on either side and ending in a large domed room. We moved quickly, glancing into the doors as we went. Morgrym deployed alchemist’s fire wherever he saw derro, and El’Rick drank a concoction and spat something sticky at one of them to glue his to his spot while he burned. In the domed room, we found Khauldera, having just torn herself free from a bloody person-sized table which was tilted at roughly a 60 degree angle, and then apparently vomited on the floor. I shudder to think what that table was used for, though in actuality I had a pretty good idea. Nearby were severed limbs and torsos, at least one recognizable as one of the missing caravan crew. This all lit the fire of righteous fury in me. My anger paled in comparison to the look on Khauldera’s face though, which turned from disgust at the taste of her stomach contents to sun-hot fury the as her presumed captor returned with some backup, probably drawn by the comotion we had made on our approach. That little blue shit was hers. There was no debate to be had on this matter right at that moment. 

As the presumed vivisectionist and his backup swarmed into the room, Khauldera made for her sword on a nearby table and I reached out with a spell feeling for all the weapons of the derro and then mangling their metal with a snap of my wrist, thus rendering them useless as anything other than crude clubs. I glanced behind us and saw survivors of Morgrym’s firebombing pouring out into the hallway to come after us, and at my will a wall of flame sealed off their passage. When his allies started falling, the vivisectionist tried to retreat and was blocked by Bardoc, forcing him to fight. He proved annoyingly difficult to actually hurt, consuming extracts to toughen his skin and loosen his corporeality, but Callista’s ability to dispel and the dogged perseverance of our blade wielders wore down his resistance. Khauldera savored her kill as much as the moment allowed, slicing both his leg and hand tendons, then piercing a lung. We heard more derro coming at that point however, and since we were in the middle of their complex we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and that a retreat would be presently in order. 

Bardoc cleaved the vivisectionist’s skull in two with Khauldera’s blessing, we threw his corpse and the others we deemed most likely to have valuable supplies or loot into the bag of holding, and I waved away my fire wall. I expected us to have to fight our way out but we found the hall abandoned. We beat a hasty retreat back towards the carriages and very nearly made it out without another fight, but scuttling footsteps on the ceiling overtook us and 3 more abominations dropped into our path before we made it through the room that had housed the human and orc prisoners. As they landed they all tore patches from their garments and threw them onto the ground where they transformed into zombies. I was having none of this, and raised my right fist where I still gripped Callista into the air, drawing forth holy power and channeling it through my ancestor’s ring into a wave that crashed over the undead, sending two of them to the ground in (brief) fits of convulsions and eliciting the closest thing to a pained reaction that I imagine an animated corpse is capable of from the third. The odds thus swung into our favor, we fell upon them with our weapons. 

The dero didn’t bother to try throwing more zombies at us and instead elected to use their hideously long claws, which they seemed to have some sort of weakening magic laced into. It wasn’t enough to save them. As the last one fell we noticed a dense fog filling in the hallway behind us. I assumed it was poison of some sort and was just pondering whether or not it was flammable when we heard a scraping sound and the gas ignited, belching fire into the room where we stood. Everyone except me got a little cooked, but with their reflexes still primed from the fight they managed to avoid the brunt of the blast. There were burns and blistered skin all around, nothing too hard to heal. Thanks to my affinity for fire, what burned everyone else was as a hot breeze to me. 

The blast ruined most of what the dero had been wearing, but one of their robes remained in serviceable condition and we dug a book off of one of them. Bardoc insisted on grabbing the orc corpses as long as we had a minute. He didn’t want to leave them for the orcs of the fortress to potentially discover, though I’m not sure how likely that is given how deep in the mountain we are. When we got back out to the passage we found that the caravaners had just gotten a fire started and were warming wine. But…. why? They couldn’t have gotten back 15 minutes before us. I guess they thought it was best to get drunk before they were all tortured to death. What little faith they have. We doused that and got everyone moving immediately. We travelled the rest of the day, and though we had to stop for the night to rest the horses, I laid a spell over Bardoc to render him immune to any poison effect so we wouldn’t have a repeat of the last night in the event we were still being chased. I worked out a plan for the next day to keep us making good time.

In the morning after my routine meditation and prayer, I queried Rotavem about his cargo and found that he had the item I needed, which was a small silk pillow worth as much as our carriage. When the horses needed rest for the day, I gathered everyone around me and using the pillow as a focus, I worked a spell that allowed us all to attain the benefit of a full night’s rest in a mere 2 hours. The magical energies involved reduced the pillow to ash, but it was a small price to pay in order to keep moving. The horses slept in the first shift, and then everyone else slept as we moved.

Throughout all this travel time we kept ourselves busy by going through all the things we’d thrown into the bag. Morgrym sat in the carriage looking through loot and passing anything magical (mostly potions) to Kogu and myself up on the driver’s bench. Kogu’s magical knowledge, somewhat to my surprise is at a similar level to my own and more towards the arcane side, which means we compliment each other well. The potion were distributed to those that could make the best use of them, nothing particularly spectacular there. A few rings of protection, good for keeping you safe in a fight, which we handed out to Morgrym and Khauldera. A headband of vast intelligence, something that would likely aid El’Rick in his alchemical pursuits. There were a few strips of cloth that had a blinding enchantment on them. We decided these were to be called the “blindfolds of blinding”. I don’t know what good they’ll do, except maybe as sleep masks. We were able to identify the robe as a robe of bones - An item favored by necromancers for its ability to summon undead in just the manner we’d seen. I know that’s probably worth a good deal of gold even partially used as it is, but on the other hand I’m not sure I want to let someone else use this sort of power. We may just burn it. When Morgrym handed us the book I took a look at it and didn’t recognize the language. Kogu took a glance and identified it as Aklo, but while he could read the words, they didn’t hold much meaning to him. It appeared to be alchemical formulae. This is something else that might be of interest to El’Rick, but we’ll have to deal with the language barrier first. Fortunately that’s a problem there’s long been a magical solution to. 

During all this, Khauldera sat on the tail of the carriage and made a project out of dismembering dero corpses and pitching the pieces onto the ground behind us, save for the heads. Those she piked into the ground along the side of our path, and then watched approvingly as El’Rick urinated on them. I’m hesitant to say it, but I was kind of glad to see him do it. He’d been looking pretty distant since we found her in that complex. He fought his way out with us, but his usual boisterous enthusiasm was a bit lacking, and he’d spent most of his time while not actively engaged in a task just staring at the ground since we left. I’m not holding that against him. What we saw in there was ghastly.

Continuing on the subject of the corpses however, I had an inspiration on our first night of travel and so prepared some very situational spells for the next day. I rapidly decomposed the flesh from the orc bodies leaving nothing but clean skeletons and took the femurs for a spell I’d heard of but never had a mind to try before because…. Well until a few months ago I didn’t make a habit of killing things on a near daily basis and it had never really occurred to be to dismember my fallen enemies before now. Morgrym took the skulls and placed them over the lanterns of our carriage which was rather ghoulish, but I’ve gotten the distinct impression he enjoys his trophies. We saved a good lot of the rest of the bones for Geralt, who mostly sat next to Khauldera and happily chewed away at a tibia, looking a perfect fusion of fierce and adorable.

Midway through another day and while travelling along the only path thus far available to us, we came upon a crevice in the side of the cavern that smelled of sweeter and fresher air than we’d been breathing for days now. It seemed like the way to go, but at the intersection with our tunnel the passage was only wide enough for a single person at a time, and though it widened beyond that, the terrain was rough. We reasoned that we could deal with the rough terrain, but we certainly didn’t want to abandon the carriages. Luckily for us, I’m the prepared sort. We had 2 brand new pickaxes in our carriage that I’d picked up a few weeks back. We worked in turns to widen out the passage until we could squeeze one cart at a time through the narrowest point, and continued on our way.

We followed the new tunnel for a day or so, camping once, letting our spirits rise as the air got steadily fresher. Early yesterday afternoon we heard a humming sound from up ahead and sent a scout who returned back to report 3 troglodytes kneeling in front of a stalagmite and crooning to it. We (all except the civilians) crept forward to take a closer look and noticed the stalagmite wasn’t a stalagmite at all but a creature called a roper. Morgrym was the one to put a name to it. He didn’t know much other than that they’re ambush predators, an uncommon but deadly threat to be aware of in untamed caves.

There was no way forward but through the cave, and we knew this wasn’t going to happen with something that wanted to eat us in the room, so we took the element of surprise while we had it. All our foes were clustered into a corner, and I sealed it off with a wall of flame, figuring they would either cook to death slowly or come through, suffering substantial burns and making easy backlit targets. They chose the second option. Two troglodytes fell without even getting near us and the 3rd scampered away. We waited until the fire wall expired, hoping to see a cooked roper on the other side. As we waited I prepared a spell that’s essentially the exact opposite of a healing spell and held it in my hand, suspecting the beast might be capable of digging under the wall and may pop up to surprise us. It wasn’t, but it had managed to find a corner that was far enough from the flames that it wasn’t harmed for the duration of the spell. Damn.

While it was still in the corner, everyone with a close quarters weapon rushed forward to trap it there and beat on it, though it was tough going due to the muddy cavern floor. I delivered my spell by laying my hand on it, and then backed up to provide healing as needed. The roper managed to wrap a tentacle around Khauldera, which it regretted immediately when she freed herself, then seized it and didn’t let go. Inspiration struck me at one point and I bid Bardoc to remove one of the blindfolds from his belt pouch where he had stashed it. I used a mage hand spell to wrap the thing around the roper’s face, blinding it while we beat on it.

When it was dead, we removed the eye (a valuable alchemical component apparently) and placed it into a jar. I’ll keep it fresh starting tomorrow with gentle repose enchantments. There were wands, scrolls, and jewels of varying usefulness and value. The most notable of these was a wand with a couple casts left in it of Teleportation Circle, a spell only workable by the most powerful magic users, and none that get their power from divine sources as far as I know. This gives us options.

Not an hours’ journey from that battle, we emerged from the mountain with much jubilation. We could see a fort in the distance which Rotavem recognized to be an official guardpost, also allowing him to place us on a map, but we elected to rest for the remainder of the day and approach it in the morning.

This was to be the first night of the full moon, and I was nervous about how that was going to go with Morgrym. We discussed privately and decided to best thing would be for him to stay concealed in the carriage so as to not alarm the other members of our caravan, and to sneak out after everyone was asleep if feasible. Theoretically, his wolf form should make him a much more effective guard due to his heightened senses. This plan was carried out without issue, and in the morning he even brought back a couple fat rabbits for breakfast, which we skun and cooked before anyone started asking questions about the teeth marks in their hide. 

Around the time we were finishing breakfast a pair of mounted soldiers rode up to our camp. They seemed ready to fight at first, but visibly relaxed as they approached and we greeted them. They explained that they’d expected something far worse than a merchant caravan, given what usually came out of this mountain tunnel. That’s certainly something we’re familiar with. We packed up camp and travelled with them the rest of the way to the guard outpost, where they were happy to extend their hospitality. We all availed ourselves of bath, and Kogu was kind enough to prestidigitize our heavily soiled clothes to a state of cleanliness. Bardoc and I spent some time at the temple, and when I had finished with my prayer and ponderence, I headed to the small clearing where Kogu was playing his instrument to the pleasure of a small crowd, took off my shirt, and just laid down in the grass to enjoy the sun. 

As he was playing again over dinner, I got a thought in my head. I’d like to repay these folks for their kindness, and I do know a spell for calling forth a bountiful feast. I’ll try to surreptitiously get a head count and see if I can pull it off tomorrow night.


	19. A Day at the Keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After having emerged from the treacherous mountain tunnel the day before, the Erend and the party spend a day relaxing in the keep and helping out a few locals.

_Rova 27, 1707 (RW: 5/5/2019):_

I headed out immediately after my last entry to find the priest from earlier. I told him what I wanted to do and he was happy to oblige me. As it turns out they have a small collection of scrolls in the chapel, and there was one that contained the spell I needed, among various other useful castings. After thanking him and taking that back to my room, I found Rotavem and cleared it with him as well. He agreed that it was good practice to leave a favorable impression on locals when we passed through. I headed to the local soldier’s tavern for a drink. It wasn’t a large establishment because it wasn’t a large outpost, but it was a nice enough place. 

The ale was awful. Grey and just a step above dishwater. I didn’t think it would hurt me, but I didn’t really care to be drinking much of it. I saw Khauldera and Bardoc in the corner acting suspicious with another fellow I’d not met, but who looked to be just another guard. I still don’t have the full story because they shoo’d me away pretty quickly, but I managed to trade one of my good cigars for some of what they were drinking (a fruity cordial), and I smoked one myself. I figured I deserved it after the week we’d had. 

I sat at a table by myself and watched El’Rick make something of a fool out of himself as he thoroughly enjoyed the awful ale and eventually fell over backwards. I watched Khauldera get into an arm wrestling match with the fellow she’d been drinking with, which she lost somewhat to my surprise, and then must have challenged him to a bout out in the training yard. They headed out and most of the bar with them - It couldn’t have been all that exciting being posted here, and a fight’s good entertainment after all. They took up wooden practice weapons and began trading blows. The fight almost looked like they were taking turns as they struck at each other back and forth, testing defenses. Khauldera may have met her match for raw strength, but she can take a hit impressively well and knows her way around a longsword as competently as anyone I’ve ever met. After several landed strikes by both combatants, she struck his hand with her sword and disarmed him, ending the fight. While nobody was seriously injured, I applied some healing magic, to the both of them before they made their way back into the bar, a bit more chummy than before but less at least one tooth. I heard she got into a fight with someone about a stolen helmet as well after I left for the night.

As I was making my way back to my room, Morgrym stumbled out of the shadows not in his wolf form as one would expect (it being the full moon yet) but seriously injured. I healed him of course, and he wouldn’t tell me what happened. This likely means it was something stupid. He’d better be careful, because he looked on the brink of collapse and if he passes out in the wilderness in the middle of the night with us having no idea where he is, that’s it for him. I’m not yet capable of wielding the the necessary power to raise the dead, and all but the most powerful resurrection magic requires you to to actually have at least a partial body. Some wild animals don’t leave much for remains.

The next morning Bardoc and Khauldera must have been bored, because they insisted on chasing down the rest of the postings on the local bulletin board. I say “rest” because I learned that the helmet altercation from last night and the guy they were drinking suspiciously with also sprung from postings on the bulletin board. This morning they were eying a dirty scrap of paper. It bore message in simple language by a kobold looking for his brother and sisters. Sure, why not? Kobolds are usually pretty dumb, but not malicious. They’re more pests than anything else, and any bad they do tends to be because they genuinely don’t know any better. There was another piece of paper that mentioned landsharks on the road leading west, but that’s a problem we’d figured to approach tomorrow when we left. We went down to speak with the kobold, name of Shik.

Shik told us his brothers and sisters had all ventured to the surface to get some ale, which they were going to acquire surreptitiously from the small tavern we had been at the night before. They reasoned that they had wanted it more, so it was okay to take. They’d been gone several days however and he was worried. He tried to insist that we take some “shinies” - goblets, watches, jewelry - for helping. I’m going to generously assume/hope that they were salvaged from a destroyed merchant’s wagon. Possibly one destroyed by that landshark from the bulletin board.

With the information about their mission, we headed up to the tavern and spoke to the proprietor, who was the wife of the guard captain. We learned that almost all of her ale had indeed been stolen several nights ago, which was why he was serving such swill. She introduced us to her teenaged son, who was training with the local priest and had been using magic to turn water into beer until they could replenish their stocks. That made sense then; I know the spell he must have been using and even from skilled hands it only produces a middling quality beverage. The great part about it though is that it doesn’t matter how dirty the water is. You could literally turn a bucket of piss into a passable beer if needed. In fact they might have been better off going that way because the dirtier the liquid, the more bold the flavor of the beverage it produces. They were using clean water. A rookie mistake, but the kid was young and obviously not very experienced in either magic or drinking, so an entirely understandable one. In any case…

She showed us where the window to the store room had been broken and the barrels rolled away. The trail wasn’t hard to follow, and it surprised me that nobody had bothered to track them down. The owner said she’d not brought it up to her husband because the guards had simply been very busy lately and she didn’t want to burden him with it when there was another shipment coming soon. The soldiers hadn’t pressed the issue yet because there had been rumors circulating that their captain had switched the ale himself so his men would drink less. 

We followed the trail across the nearby plains, finding along the way at least one of the barrels busted open and the ground still smelling of wasted booze. At one point we heard a mild commotion looked up to see a bird circling in the air with what looked like a wounded wing. There was a large cat prowling below it. I didn’t really think much of this. It’s ugly but it’s nature; you can’t fault a predator for hunting prey. El’Rick - either to be an ass or as a mercy, I couldn’t really tell - took a shot at the bird with his firearm. He hit it in the other wing which caused it to start spiraling downward, but the sound from the shot scared off the cat. Kogu, ever the gentle soul, scooped up and healed the bird. It then perched itself on his shoulder and hasn’t left him since, so I guess he made a friend.

Following the barrell trail to its end we found a cave. We navigated it quickly, triggering a few traps, some with our faces and some without. Most notably El’Rick ended up dropping a vial of poison on himself which has had some lingering effects I still need to to cure him of. It’s not spite like with Pash in Masalworth, I just don’t have the necessary spells ready today. I will deal with it in the morning. We found the kobolds drunk off their asses in what looked like the later stages of a good party, where half of them were already passed out. We told them their brother was worried about them, and they agreed to go home since the booze was pretty much all gone at this point anyways. They let us know about the last couple traps so we didn’t accidentally trip them. On exploring the cave before leaving we found a room with some exposed gems in the wall. I used a stone shaping spell to pop them out and add them to our collection.

When we got back to the outpost I mended the window for the proprietor and explained what had happened. Bardoc negotiated an agreement with the kobolds that they wouldn’t try to steal any more liquor, and in return the tavern would supply them with casks regularly. They don’t exactly have refined tastes, so the swill will do perfectly well, and as a bonus it will give the son a chance to practice his spellwork. He also tried to explain to them in a more general sense the concept of ownership and why it’s wrong to steal, even if you want something more than the owner. I’m not sure how lasting of an impression he made.

A few hours after our return I conjured the banquet for everyone as planned. Bardoc gave a speech, and Kogu played his lute despite having had far too much to drink. It was merry, nobody left unsatisfied and the fact that it was conjured cutlery and all meant that there was no cleanup afterwards. Anything not eaten just vanished back into nothing. Very convenient. We’re planning to leave tomorrow morning.


	20. (Land)Sharkbait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing their journey towards Hertsbury, the party is set upon by landsharks.

_Rova 28, 1707 (RW: 5/5/2019):_

We left as planned, and now we return unexpectedly. I’m presently resting in the back of our carriage. We only made it a few hours from the outpost before the landsharks that we’d read about decided to try to eat us. We heard them coming in time to not be taken completely off guard but we didn’t have the opportunity to cast any defensive spells before the fight, and we found ourselves wishing we’d done a little more research before setting off. There ended up being 3 in total, one huge and significantly more demonic, then two that were smaller but still slightly bigger than horses.

The first one broke the surface right in front of me and slashed me just below my breastplate. Tore a chunk out of my arm too. I had been quickly planning a defensive strategy before that, but after that blow I stumbled back to the rear of the group as Khauldera and Morgrym rushed in to fight it head on. Bardoc helped me put myself back together and I called up a wall of flame that cut through two of them, not killing either but not doing their life expectancy any favors. Morgrym and Khauldera were faring poorly against the big one, as its skin was coated in some sort of sticky substance that clung to their weapons and rapidly dissolved them. Kogu stepped up, waved his hands a bit, and became 7 Kogus. I couldn’t tell which one was the real him, and evidently neither could the monster he faced off against because it kept striking at the illusions, destroying them but leaving him unharmed. El’Rick managed to land a perfect shot on one of the small ones, dropping it in a single blow. Of course since luck seems to have a great sense of balance, his next shot misfired and left his weapon in a sad state with him narrowly dodging a gout of flame.

I brought in a fire elemental to assist with the other small beast (the one Kogu was still occupying), and unleashed one of Callista’s new abilities on it, searing it with a beam of heavenly fire. We slew it without further injury. Meanwhile Khauldera, Morgrym, and now Bardoc were all losing ground to the large one. Both of the former were now without weapons, the acid having damaged them beyond any sort of usability. Bardoc’s sword was having no such issue. I recalled it was made of cold iron. See this is why we should have done our research and prepared. Khauldera got some range on the creature and pulled out her bow (a rare sight), planting a flaming arrow into one of its eyes and setting its face alight. I redirected my elemental to it and did my best to bathe the beast in flames. It fought, but it died all the same, with Bardoc fittingly landing the killing blow.

We looted the bodies and of anything valuable and decided it would make sense to go back to the fort for the night and just let them know this threat was taken care of, lest they devote any of their resources to trying to eliminate it. I’ll work some magic in the morning to repair our destroyed weapons. I think I should be able to put everything back into working order, enchantments and all.


	21. The Scope of the Threat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party spends a night at the keep they just left, and Erend has a revelatory conversation with Callista regarding the exact nature of the threat they're facing.
> 
> The group picks up a scaly tagalong.

_Rova 29, 1707 (RW: 5/11/2019):_

We arrived back at the outpost without issue yesterday and ended up staying another night. Bardoc and Khauldera wanted to get the chitin plate we’d harvested made into new armor and that sort of work was a favorite of the local smith. The idea was that the new armor would be lighter than what Bardoc was wearing and tougher than what Khauldera was wearing. Bardoc mapped out his plans for just what enchantments he wants to get put on it too, though there was nobody at the outpost that had the requisite skills for that step. Even so, a day for two suits of armor is VERY fast and I’m suitably impressed. We did speak to Rotavem and agree to forgo pay for this additional day, since it was entirely personally motivated.

At the tavern that night they were serving up a good dark ale, so I shared a table and a few glasses with Bardoc and Khauldera. El’Rick specifically requested more of the dishwater swill and even got Morgrym to drink some, though the latter ”enhanced” it with a substantial proportion of vodka. Bardoc and Khauldera left the bar to go check on the kobolds and I took a chair over to the fire where I could drink my ale and have a smoke while watching the flames. I was letting my mind wander in a sort of directionless meditation when it suddenly seemed very important that we get moving to Elflien, and absolutely as soon as possible. The thought came out of nowhere, it didn’t feel quite right, and it kept getting stronger as I tried to brush it casually away. I became alarmed and focused my will, shoving the urge properly out of my head. Feeling irritation from Callista, I did the math and made a reasonable assumption that she’d been trying to use some sort of mind control on me, which pissed me off quite a lot. 

We had a talk. Using words. It started out pretty terse. She explained in a way that would have been through gritted teeth if she’d had any that she was not happy with the idea of riding back through here to continue fighting dero and then kill orcs when there was a potentially apocalyptic catastrophe brewing. She was confused and irritated by the fact that we weren’t treating the problem of Navenna with the gravity due a threat of this scale. I explained that last time we went up against Navenna it was pure luck (probably due to arrogange on her part really) that she didn’t simply kill us all, and so I wasn’t in a great hurry to go rushing off to her when I had no idea what sort of threat she posed to the world at large and we weren’t nearly strong enough to defeat her anyways. It made more sense to hunt down clues and do what good we could along the way. This prompted her to finally give me a proper explanation of things that she apparently thought I should know. Not in the bar where people could hear us though. We headed outside to the grove where I’d listened to Kogu play several days ago, taking Bardoc with us as he’d recently returned and wandered over to me by the fire.

Callista explained that the tower we’d been in in Masalworth was what she and Mitra had dubbed a “containment shrine”. Over a millennia ago, she explained, the first mana blights appeared. These were geographical areas where magic behaved erratically, causing great problems for practitioners of the arcane arts and stirring up the natural world in various, often disastrous ways. I’m familiar with mana blights as static regions, well known and largely avoided for these reasons, but I’d heard nothing about them growing in size or intensity, nor appearing in new places. They were theorized to simply be static and tied to the planet for whatever reason. Nobody’s been able to piece together exactly what they are or where they came from, or at least if they did then they never published that knowledge. 

What Callista described was different. What might begin as erratic winds disrupting sea trade would eventually result in tsunamis. Animals which would have normally been content to leave people be could be seized by mindless aggression. On top of these strictly material threats, the fabric of reality itself seemed to ripple and tear allowing incursions from extraplanar entities, many of whom were outright hostile. These blights began small, but they grew steadily with no sign of an upper limit in size. Mitra, having been a scholar of arcane magic (the first, according to church doctrine) before he ascended to divinity, took an immediate interest in this phenomenon and was wise enough to identify the magnitude of the threat. 

At this point history Mitra and Callista already knew each other, though she did not elucidate on the nature of their prior relationship. She was a sorceress of great prominence in her own regard, First of the Celestial bloodline; not as powerful as a god to be sure, but easily one of the premier magic wielders of her day. Together they determined that vast quantities of raw magic were pouring into the world from weak points in the ley lines, but she didn’t inform me or speculate as to why they were weak in the first place. They designed a mechanism to absorb this raw power as it leaked from the ley lines and process it into a more stable form before releasing it. The mechanism required a great deal of space however, and so they designed towers to encase it and called them containment shrines. They began building these along ley lines where mana blights were occurring, and wherever they detected weak points that might cause the blights to occur. Unfortunately they were unable to fix the ones that already existed, but the towers did stop them from spreading, thus the present-day conception of mana blights.

Unfortunately the shrines attracted a great deal of attention from bad sorts, who saw a mechanism capable of harnessing and controlling large amounts of raw power as something they could twist to their own purposes. Many of the shrines became hotly contested locations. Far too often they fell into less than altruistic hands, though those hands’ capacity to use them varied wildly, and generally speaking the shrines still functioned in their original purpose of preventing further damage from mana blights. Still this could not stand. Mitra, Callista, and a small strike force went from shrine to shrine, killing all who defiled them, making any necessary repairs, replacing towers that had been destroyed, and sealing them away deep underground before erasing all traces of their presence on the surface. When the more hotly contested locations had been dealt with Callista split off from the group to lock and repair several locations in Etrela, and was not seen again. 

It’s elementary history that Mitra vanished from the material plane in 1264 MR after finishing Mitra’s Obelisk, the monument that stands to this day outside of Sustra. This surprisingly, was something that Callista did not know, having already been sealed inside her hammer form at that point in time. She was relieved when I told her of the obelisk. It had been to be the greatest of the containment shrines. After it was completed Mitra was going to attempt to wipe all knowledge of the shrines and their magic from the world, a monumental feat of power (even for a god) that she’d helped him lay the groundwork for, but that they hadn’t finished the the preparations for prior to splitting up. Callista judged that since the obelisk was built and I had known absolutely nothing about containment shrines or the source of the mana blights, he must have succeeded in all his goals before leaving our plane of existence.

Navenna obviously found one though. Callista said as best she could tell, the books Navenna was having people read in the tower and that she then subsequently stole when we interrupted her contained information on the locations of the other towers. Callista had heavily protected them of course, but Navenna had found a way around that by compelling others to read them and suffer the effects. So the upshot of all this is that Callista feels very strongly we need to GET. GOING. I can’t say that I disagree with her, now that I know more regarding the scope of the looming threat..

That was last night. We left today as soon as the armor was done, and with a new passenger, somewhat to my chagrin. Bardoc and Khauldera had found Shik, the kobold from a few days ago rummaging around in the caravan, though he swore he wasn’t trying to steal anything, just stow away. They decided to let him come along. For the love of….. 

For the record, and it’s really just a personal record so I know I’m not rewriting history when I say I was against this from the start, I think this is a terrible idea. I don’t think he’s smart enough to engage in proper tactics with us, I don’t think he’s tough enough to survive many of the fights that we get into, and I don’t have faith that he has enough skill at anything to be any sort of asset to us. Khauldera is enamored with the little reptile though. Well, I’m not going to make a stink about it. I’ll heal him of course, because I’m not an asshole, but I’m not taking responsibility for his feeding, training, or burial.

I repaired Khauldera and Morgrym’s weapons on the road, and was able to fully restore the former’s magical properties, which consisted of a simple but moderately powerful evocation enchantment - the basic sort found on weapons more commonly than any other enchantment. Strike more true, cut more deeply, that sort of thing. Permanent magic like that has to be woven into an object. It leaves metaphysical pathways and impressions on a material even if the power is lost due to massive damage to the weapon. Repairing the physical damage is easy. Re-empowering it requires a sufficiently powerful individual, and in this case I fit that requirement 

We travelled the rest of the day without issue and made camp. We should reach Portshead the day after tomorrow.


	22. Portshead, The City of the Salted Pumpkin Fields

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stopping overnight in Portshead, the party engages in some commerce and community service.

_Lamashan 2, 1707 (RW: 5/11/2019):_

We made it into Porthead without any additional hostilities on Lam 1.

The morning after my last entry the duck laid an egg filled with a white creamy substance that, after some cautious poking and taste testing, we determined to be mayonnaise. Plain old mayonnaise. That duck is weird as hell. Well we pulled some bread and preserved meat together out of our food stores and made our best go at sandwiches. It was a pleasant surprise, and it lifted spirits a bit.

During the last bit of the journey, we fell in alongside a large gorge. Old, large ruins were visible in the distance. El’Rick happened to know these as the ruins of a cyclopian civilization long extinct, which was moderately interesting. As we approached Portshead we found it built up around and into more such ruins. In fact the small group of buildings at the top edge of the gorge was largely situated inside one massive temple. There was a wide path carved down into the gorge and structures built into the walls of stone. We took note of several blue winged creatures flying in the air above and around the town. As we arrived, Rotavem went into the merchant’s guild building for maybe 10 minutes and then came back out to tell us he’d secured us accomodations at the Crowded Sailboat Inn down in the lower city.

The lower city of Porthshead is where the majority of the everyday business takes place and where the majority of the residences are located. Portshead is a city built around a salt mine. The mine is at the bottom of the gorge, thus, so are the people. The buildings at surface level are primarily administrative and host limited but undoubtedly plush accommodations strictly for members of the merchant guild. Guards posted at the top of the ramp informed those seeking to venture down that they would have to leave anything larger than a dagger up top, or else submit it to peace bonding - a process by which they wrap a magical cord around weapons to prevent them being used for violence. The cord isn’t all that difficult to remove, but it provides a short hindrance to lethal violence which is often all that’s needed to prevent people getting killed over stupid shit like, well, pretty much everything that’s ever caused a bar fight. They said it worked quite well for them. We all consented to the peace bonding. Callista could shred any restrictive enchantment anyways if it came to that. 

Kogu got grilled harder than the rest of us, and they weren’t exactly subtle about the fact that it was due to his race. I can’t really blame someone for having a poor view of orcs, (they’re generally violent savages through and through) though admittedly I started life with something of a bias in that regard, what with the historical animosity between my people and theirs - which my ancestors are far from blameless in, by the way. That said I’ve never met an orc that wasn’t trying to kill me or someone else who didn’t deserve it. Half-orcs are something else entirely. They do seem by and large to possess cognitive ability in normal human ranges, and I’ve had the occasion to know several over the course of my life. They’re just people. They feel, they hurt, they love, they bleed, and they’ve got the added burden of usually not being accepted by either of the people that spawned them, or else only being valued as a tool for more effective violence. Aside from all that, I’ve met gnomes more intimidating than Kogu. I mean he knows how to use a simple weapon, sure, but let’s just say he’s not someone you’d bet on in an arm wrestling match. Of course they eventually let him through..

Once we got down to the bottom I was grateful for the opportunity to visit a marketplace. I restocked on flasks and jars, sold some old scrolls that weren’t really powerful enough to be worth carrying around anymore, sold the doom wand, and sold some potion supplies I’m not going to use. I split the profits equally out to my companions next I saw them, and received some coin from Morgrym from the sale of our other battle spoils. I was then pleased to find that the marketplace had a small smoke shop. I’ve been wanting something to smoke in bars other than my very fine cigars, so I went in to peruse and spoke with a half-elf girl that was clearly stoned off her gourd. She helped me find a gorgeous pipe of onyx with blue streaks through it, possibly lapis. That and a healthy supply of a mellow golden tobacco set me back a few tens of gold, but I like nice things. And anyways artists need to eat too. El’Rick had followed me here after he heard me asking around about the place and he proceeded to flirt and talk about substances of a slightly more psychotropic nature with the girl. 

Nothing all that noteworthy happened the rest of the day and we found ourselves in the bar of the Crowded Sailboat that night drinking pumpkin beers, a local specialty. Morgrym got another letter via pigeon from Brii, his halfling lover/penpal/girlfriend back in Masalworth. Eventually he, El’Rick, and Khauldera all went up to sleep while Bardoc, Kogu and I sat and chatted with the bartender. Somehow it came up that the price of the pumpkin beers had been going up due to trouble on the farms surrounding the gorge. This was the result of the dragon-like creatures we’d seen on our way in. They had moved in some weeks back and been causing trouble since then. Tearing up farm land, eating crops, fighting over territory, etc. Well our slightly tipsy asses figured we’d do a community service. We are warriors of Mitra after all, and Mitra always made it a focus to improve the lot of the common man.

That’s how the three of us ended up walking through farm fields at half an hour past midnight on the morning of Lamashan 2, looking for trouble.The moon was bright and the sky was cloudy. We couldn’t find the beast on the ground anywhere. After many minutes of wandering, we spotted what might have been its shadow above the clouds. Kogu managed to make a noise loud enough to draw it down and the fight began. 

As it was swooping down at us I pulled one of the orc femurs from my haversack and worked a quick spell on it, causing it to spring into the air and float in front of me, ready to block or deflect any incoming attacks. When the beast got closer Kogu was able to identify it as a salt drake, though we may have figured that out shortly anyways when it opened its mouth and spewed forth an incredible amount of razor sharp salt crystals at us. The bone worked wonders against this, interposing itself and spinning rapidly, deflecting at least half of what would have hit us otherwise. I cast a debilitating portent on the monster, greatly reducing its ability to hurt us, and Bardoc tore up its wing with arrows until it fell to the ground. Kogu landed the killing blow in the bardic way, with a sonic strike. Unfortunately the drake rapidly dissolved into a fine salt mist and drifted off in the breeze.

We held a brief discussion and decided that while we COULD come back for the other two tomorrow with the rest of our companions, that would delay the caravan more, and this would be unprofessional. Also we just hate to leave a job half done. So we went looking for the other 2. We found them fighting with each other in the air, but they quickly turned on us as we approached. I couldn’t disempower them like I did the last one, so I evened the numerical odds a bit, summoning a hammer of pure force and a pair of dire bats. We fought one with the hammer while the dire bats kept the other busy. Bardoc was just landing the killing blow on our target as the bats lost their fight. The salt breath really started to become a problem as it dried our skin to the point that movement was pain and then sliced it for good measure, quite literally rubbing salt in the wounds. The bone absorbed a lot of hits for me, but eventually ran out of magical energy and disintegrated. We spread out to provide a less bountiful target for the salt spray, and I threw a fireball at the drake as Kogu blinded it, then I sprinted up to the flailing creature and laid my hand on it, funneling the exact opposite of a healing spell through my tattooed sigil, killing it. Took me a couple minutes to regain feeling in my hand after that. These drakes drifted away much like the other.

We healed up as best we could and ambled back to town, there being no materials to harvest from our kills. We left early afternoon today, a late start due to waiting for Bardoc’s equipment to finish some more upgrades at a local craftsman. We’re going to be travelling after dark, but we won’t have to worry about setting up camp, as we’re heading for a waystation maintained by the merchant’s guild.

Somewhere along the way Shik ran to the duck and opened an egg to find a horn inside. Kogu and I studied it for a bit and decided it looked like a summoning horn. Based on the inscribed runes and the magical aura, we’re of the opinion that the being it summons would be from another plane, best guess Elysium. That means a creature of good. Could be a useful asset, but he opened the egg and figured that made the horn his. Khauldera negotiated a trade for some gems (“shinies”), which I dug out of our horde.


	23. The Rending of the Bloody Veils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The caravan stops outside Raktham, a city plagued by crime in recent years. The party decides to look for the reason behind the wrongdoings.

_Lamashan 5, 1707 (RW: 5/19/2019 & 6/2/2019):_

The waystation we were stopping at turned out to be far more interesting that I was expecting. There was a guarded paddock for horses and wagons, but no building for people. Simply a tent with a large opening. Rotavem ushered us into the tent and we found ourselves in a beautiful moonlit valley with a clear stream running through, and plenty of accommodation for weary travellers. He explained this was a demiplane created just for this purpose. It’s a very impressive piece of spellwork to be sure, and I’m sure they had to pay a king’s ransom for it. But then I suppose a merchant guild would have a few of those to spare.

The night passed uneventfully and in the morning Bardoc opened an egg which turned him vibrantly yellow all over. His reaction to this was worth as much as the sheer sight of him; he was very much not amused. After that and over breakfast I discharged the spell I’d stored in the Staff of Percussive Maintenance and replaced it with a nasty bit of work that just inflicts general harm on whomever is hit with it - The same spell that I used to finish off the salt drake the night before in fact. I did this after discussing with Kogu and finding out that he actually knows how to handle a quarterstaff such as this. So while it’s not his preferred role in a fight, being able to deliver a single unexpected and highly lethal blow could save his or someone else’s life.

Rotavem told us this coming night we would be stopping at, but not entering (with the wagons in any case) the small town of Raktham. This town was originally founded by an exiled dwarf and mostly run by a local sect of the Church of Mitra - The Sun Order of the Mask, with the head of the local marketplace and a town elder also holding considerable sway. It was historically a place for those who had committed crimes to prepare for re-entry into functional society once they were considered fit (verified by a letter of unmasking from the Sun Order). This hadn’t proven to be the recipe for disaster that a cynical man would expect, at least not until relatively recently when there’d been a noted increase in the amount of local crime. As such the merchant’s guild maintained their own waystation outside the city limits with their own guards, and cautioned their people against entering the city casually. Since there was a guarded encampment for him and his people to stay at, Rotavem gave us leave to enter the city as we pleased. 

Bardoc, Khauldera, Kogu, Morgrym and myself all ventured into the city. We figured we’d take a look into this uptick in crime. Probably wouldn’t solve anything in a night, but we weren’t all that concerned about getting knocked off for asking too many questions either and hey, this is what we do. I admit I had a bit of personal interest in it as it smelled a bit like corrupt church officials, and that’s something that really, really pisses me off. Bounty hunting was strictly forbidden in Raktham which didn’t surprise me given the nature of the place, but El’Rick seemed to take it personally and stayed outside.

Khauldera and Morgrym split off while Bardoc and I went to the church to speak with a local clergyman. I conversed with the man while Bardoc studied his aura with an astonishing lack of subtlety. The priest tolerated him and confirmed to me that there had been an increase in crime, but they hadn’t had luck in determining who was responsible - not that they had any connections in that part of society. I asked if there was anything we could do to help and he said the garden needed weeding, which didn’t really sound all that bad in comparison to our usual jobs since I can’t imagine a way to get killed while doing it. As we stooped over in the walled garden behind the church, Morgrym briefly rejoined us before noticing a women (a town elder named Hawthorne, we later learned) watching us from the street and going to speak with her. When she learned that we were interested in the crime problem, she gave him a person to seek out: Smoke, the head of the marketplace. Morgrym went to find Smoke, while I and Bardoc, not wanting to leave a job half done, located some people willing to finish the weeding for several coppers apiece. We overpaid them and took off after Morgrym. 

When we arrived at the marketplace we found everyone to be wearing masks that concealed their faces. In fact this was compulsory, and masks were provided at the entrance for those who had none of their own. Everyone selected a mask that suited them, I taking the visage of a stone golem. Morgrym updated us on what he’d found: A bandit group called the Bloody Veils had been knocking off wagons parked on the outskirts of town.

Without much time to come up with an actual good plan, we fetched our carriage from the merchant enclave to use as a lure and parked it outside a bar near the outskirts of town. Khauldera, Bardoc, and Kogu all went into the bar to play spy, something Bardoc is generally ill-suited for and uniquely so in this instance since he was still colored bright yellow and (as I heard later) spent his time sitting at the end of the bar in his full Mitran vestures drinking water and staring at people, trying to determine which ones had malice in their hearts. This ended with him getting a truth potion slipped into one of his drinks, after which he started spilling out information to a fellow patron who was asking some slightly too nosey questions. Morgrym ushered Bardoc out once he realized what was going on and put him in the carriage until the effect wore off (typically just a matter of minutes with these sorts of things). 

Meanwhile I had been standing near the carriage keeping an eye out for any would-be robbers. I’d enchanted another bone with the same spell from the salt dragon fight and tucked it under my backpack so it couldn’t be seen but would leap out to defend me if/when it was needed. Around the time Morgrym joined me we were approached by two people who made a show of polite conversation but were very definitely trying to gather information. I’m not sure if they were trying to assess us as threats or marks. They left without violence, but it did feel like a close thing. I slapped a protective charm on Morgrym and he moved to track the two while Bardoc (now recovered) retrieved Khauldera and Kogu from the bar and then took the carriage out of the city. He returned with a reluctant El’Rick just as we were getting ambushed in the alley behind the establishment.

Morgrym, being in the lead, took a crossbow bolt from a shooter crouched on a 2nd story windowsill and several brutally effective slashes from 2 rapier wielding humans as they charged forth from the alley. He was hurt so badly he cycled into his wolf form and got a single series of attacks off before being brought to the ground and returning to normal. I wrecked the charger’s swords with the metal warping spell I’d used on the derro, and rushed forward to heal him lest he exsanguinate in the mud and shit. We fell upon our now disarmed opponents and quickly killed them as the window shooter and his counterpart on the other side of the street continued firing at us. El’Rick blew the knee out of one of the crossbowmen causing him to fall to the earth, and I employed a small act of telekinesis to knock the other one from his perch by swinging the window shutter into him. Khauldera intimidated the last one to the point where he spit out the location of their boss, which was, conveniently, inside the bar we had just come out of. Small world. Bardoc mentioned that he’d only identified one definitively evil person in the bar, and he’d pointed her out to Khauldera. Of course there’s no way in all hells that they didn’t hear those gunshots. Khauldera then executed our assailant for having injured Shik.

We took a few moments to collect ourselves and search the bodies. Each attacker was equipped the same: A standard crossbow and a rapier bearing a keening enchantment. The crossbow’s are nothing impressive, but those rapiers put all together are worth a small fortune. I’d say we definitely have the attention of the crime ring. Khauldera gifted the two rapiers that I hadn’t wrecked to Shik, and I placed the other ones in my bag with the crossbows. I should be able to fix and sell them. On one of the corpses we found a piece of paper bearing what appear to be 5 tally marks and then three vertical lines, the rightmost two being crossed off (see margin), as well as a clipping from a news publication describing a series of crimes in a city to the north of Hertsbury. The article might reasonably be about this man’s crimes, but what of the other paper? That was a puzzle we didn’t have a chance to solve as while we collected ourselves and our spoils, we were approached by Elder Hawthorne, Smoke, the guard captain Telnus and 5 of his guards. They weren’t immediately hostile, but their hands hovered a bit too close to their sword hilts for comfort.

We explained ourselves in a rather tense conversation. They were appalled that we’d come into their city and killed 4 of their citizens, which, on the surface, was fair enough. We explained they had attacked us which I got the impression they believed but still wished we hadn’t caused such a mess and especially without due process or any witnesses to corroborate. The armor of the soldiers was decorated with a symbol I’d seen in the church earlier, so I when I strode up to introduce myself and shake hands I made sure my sigil ring was visible and I focused just a little power into it to make the etching glow and call attention to the fact that we shared a faith and to demonstrate that I was right with Mitra. 

It wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped. It might have been if El’Rick hadn’t chosen that moment to assuage any doubts that he was Pash’s brother by running backwards and pantless toward Telnus, yelling something I can’t actually be fucked to remember right now. This was made worse still by the fact he was covered in mud and shit since he’d shot from a prone position during our previous fight, which in itself was understandable, but didn’t excuse the deliberate rolling around in it afterwards. He got tackled, but was let go of in a haste when he vomited a great number of spiders onto the guard captain. I was asked to explain his actions, a task in which I believe I set a new personal record for lack of enthusiasm. Fortunately for El’Rick, he managed to get the guard to believe that ratfolk have spider bladders, and his was being pressed on. An outlandish lie to be sure, but I suppose if you’d only met a few rat people and you weren’t that educated in biology it might seem believable. For my part I tried to keep a neutral face to not expose this lie, strictly to get out of dealing with responsibility for more of his stupid shenanigans. That is, after I took my hands from my temples where I’d been massaging away a headache.

We explained that the ringleader was allegedly in the bar and convinced them to come along with us to investigate so they could see we were telling the truth. Problem was that when we entered the bar, we found her gone. We asked a few questions of someone who looked approachable and found the suspects’s name to be Gorana Bridgemason. She was the richest woman in town, and daughter of a man who was passed over for his family’s estate in another part of the country. She was known to be haughty and consider herself above this place and it’s people, despite the fact that she was also here because of crimes she and her father committed. She was heavily involved with commerce in the town, and was known deal in especially fine textiles. There was an estate on the south side of the town belonging to her. We headed there next. Bardoc split off along the way to visit the church, feeling guilty for having spilled so much information and likely causing the altercation. Kogu went to look after him. That would be the last time I saw them until the following day.

With our official escort we were able to get in just fine, but we realized standing in her grand entry foyer that we didn’t actually have any evidence other than the word of a dead man. They weren’t going to arrest her on our word alone and no evidence, nor should they in any just system of law. When she realized we had nothing solid on her, we were crowded out of the house by her swelling sense of self-righteousness. Hawthorne was not happy with us, but she could tell we didn’t intend to let this drop so she just begged us to please, please try to avoid further violence, which we readily agreed to. 

By this point I was putting together that a town full of criminals trying to reclaim their lives and on their last chance with the law was a dream scenario for someone with lots of money (which translates directly to lots of influence in most places of course) and no morals. If I was reading the situation right, then it was entirely possible, even probable that blackmail was taking place. Furthermore that means that the people we killed in that alley may indeed have been innocent of any recent crimes and only attacking us due to said blackmail. This hasn’t caused the pit in my stomach that the werewolves did, as there really was no recounting of all our fights and realization that we were the aggressors. We didn’t strike first, and by the time we struck back one of our men was already gravely wounded. I wasn’t the only one to draw all of this together.

Since our only remaining suspect was the church, we went there to poke around. The old priest from earlier was nowhere to be seen, presumably having gone to bed as it was late evening by this point. We snuck around and searched the place but found no evidence of stolen merchandise and could detect no magic that might have concealed it. Very nice tapestries though. Nicer than you would expect an otherwise modest church like this to possess. They could have been a gift of course, and as evidence it was flimsy at best when taken alone. We decided to return to the alley to see if we could track where our assailants had come from.

As it turned out, we could. Down at the end of the alley we found a disguised trapdoor in the ground. This city isn’t big enough to have a sewer system, so this was something else. I provided crowbar from my pack and helped Morgrym pry it open wide enough for Shik to slip through, where he then hit the switch to open it up and let us in. Morgrym misjudged the step and tumbled down the flight of stairs, somehow, miraculously, avoiding injury - at least to his body. As we all joined him we notice a sigil with a riddle on the wall. The answer to this riddle was fire, and once it was applied a path lit before us on the ground. We followed it through a maze of tunnels until we came to a larger room with a pool of tranquil water, 3 doors, and a switch. After pondering this for a bit and doing all the usual investigations for clues and magic to find nothing, we remembered the piece of paper with the 5 tallies and the 3 lines, 2 of them crossed out. The one that hadn’t been crossed out was the leftmost. We tried that door but rather than opening, a keyhole formed in it. Not magical, my ass…

Having nothing better to do we went back to investigate the pool, and noticed among some gold and various other items, a silver key. Great. That was certainly convenient. I scraped around on the ground for some pebbles and whipped them into the pool as hard as I could, where they stopped very near the surface and jiggled a bit before going still. So that was a gelatinous cube, which was corroborated by the fact that now I thought about it, all the various debris in the pool were made of metal. I tried to use the same telekinesis spell I’d used on the window shutter to retrieve the key, but the cube provided too much resistance. Remembering that I had a fishhook in my pack, we worked to rig it up to the silver chains we’d purchased for Morgrym and had shik, being the most suited for this sort of finesse work, fish it out. Okay so maybe the little lizard’s growing on me a little bit. In the last week he’s gotten us into less trouble than El’Rick in any case.

When the key was inserted into the door and turned, it melted in and the door sprung open. On the other side was found another maze of corridors and another symbol on the wall with a different riddle. The answer to this one was water, and I conjured some up, causing another path to light. We followed this to a dead end with a stone block in one corner, sufficient to, say, allow someone to access a trapdoor in the ceiling if such a thing were present. We couldn’t identify any trapdoor, but there was a segment of stone rubbed much smoother than everything around it. We tried touching it, detecting any magic, pushing on it, utilizing the crowbar, nothing worked. 

We heard footsteps approaching from the direction we’d come, and turned in time to see two figures wearing crimson veils round the corner. They froze when they saw us, but made no immediate aggressive movements, and we held to our promise to Elder Hawthorne by doing the same. As a result we were able to have a dialogue. These men were named Rishke and Cateye. They confirmed to us that Bridgemason was the one leading the crime ring, and that she was in fact utilizing blackmail, though in addition to this she was bribing the church for extra letters of unmasking to use as an enticement. That explains the tapestries in the church then. Seems a pretty cheap fee to sell out your institution’s integrity though. We asked them how the trapdoor opened and where it went. One of them readily demonstrated by removing his veil and rubbing it against the smooth spot, causing the door to open. He informed us that this was a secret entrance into her manor. They explained that they really didn’t want to be serving her, but she essentially was holding their second chance hostage. We elected not to go up into the manor, since that was likely to end in a bloodbath with, again, little to no evidence that we weren’t simply a band of merry murderers.

As an alternative to the bloodbath, we proposed that our new acquaintances come with us back to Elder Hawthorne and the guard captain, explain everything they had told us, possibly even submit to a truth compulsion while giving their testimony. This would build a proper case for an arrest and trial of Gorana. They wanted to, but were afraid she would have them killed. I told them we would be their shields and so the only way they would be killed is after we were already dead. I guess we look a formidable enough bunch to make that promise carry weight. With that they led us out of the tunnels using a different secret trapdoor to exit than the one we had come in.

Hawthrone was initially unamused by our showing up at her residence at this time of night, but she perked up when we explained what we had found. She considered Telnus to be a man of impeccable honor despite the implication of the church’s involvement in this, and sent for him along with several of his most trusted men. With this troupe, we headed back to the manor. At their begging, we left Rishke and Cateye behind in the house. 

The grounds were deserted, which wasn’t all that unusual given the time of night, but so was the gatehouse. It looks to have been vacated in a hurry. Morgrym scaled the wall and let us in whereupon we proceeded to the front door which he gleefully opened with axe and boot. What we found when we entered was Gorana Bridgemason facing us from the second floor, her father behind her like a sheepish dog, and 10 crossbowmen arayed all around the upper terrace with a clear shot of us. I guess she got spooked. Probably the trapdoor was guarded. We exchanged some terse words before Khauldera, ever the diplomat, walked herself right into the middle of the foyer and appealed directly to the shooters on all sides of her. Her words sued for peace, but her tone and general demeanor put across that she’d happily and easily kill them all if it came to it. If I didn’t know her I’d say she’s crazy, but I’d put money down she could take their full volley and still charge up the stairs to kill several of them before she was in any real danger. With 4 guardsmen and us behind her, it looked a lot bolder to them I’m sure than it actually was.

She gave an impassioned speech, asking them whether they would fight and die for gold from an evil woman that cared nothing for them. As she said it, our guard escort stepped up, Morgrym fondled his axe, and I drew Callista (who began emanating a soft glow) from my back. Sometimes real life does actually manage to play out like a story. Real badass moment there. They threw down their arms.

Gorana had that unique look you only ever really see when somebody’s whole world falls apart around them. It’s a terrible thing on a good person, but it’s oh so sweet when worn by a villain. This shifted into resolve as she drew a rapier and stabbed her father in the belly while screaming that she wouldn’t go back to prison, and then turned the blade on herself, sinking to the ground amid a blossoming pool of blood. This wouldn’t do. At the very least she was responsible for 4 deaths earlier this evening, probably many more, and who knows how many ruined lives that had been on the verge of being reclaimed. Whatever hell she was trying to get to would have to wait. I charged up the stairs and stabilized her and her father so they could be taken into custody for a proper trial and sentencing by local authorities. Hawthorne asked the sellswords to come along with us and she would see to it that they got paid whatever wage they’d been promised, then invited us to loot the house of whatever tapestries we’d like by way of compensation for our service. We told her we’d do that and then be paying a visit to the church. She didn’t feel the need to beg us to avoid violence at this point. Feels good when people believe in you.

At the church, I took the lead, marched straight up to the priest’s quarters, and booted in his door with one mighty kick. Scared the everloving shit out of the sleeping bastard. I gave him a brief rundown of our night and demanded an explanation. He admitted to everything without much cajoling and begged forgiveness, explaining dejectedly that he’d been roped in due to his need for drink. He had been numbing the memory of past mistakes for too long, and now he needed the alcohol just to stave off shaking sickness. Bridgemason controlled the bartender, and once she got him to start accepting the tapestries as further bribes, he was sunk in too deep to feel like he could get out. Hell. I guess I can understand that. If you spend enough time being hopeless you just become resigned to it. I had to take him in as well, but I put in a good word for the guy. 

We all wrote and signed statements of what we knew, and Hawthorne saw us put up in a room for the night with a nice breakfast brought by the next morning. She even sent word to the gatehouse to let our caravan pass without a toll. I stopped by the priest where he was being held and used my powers to cure him of the physical aspect of his addiction, with the warning that it would come back in full force if he drank even a small amount in the next several months at least. Small mercies are often all we can do but doing good by others isn’t always about scale. We then met up with Rotavem who was making ready to depart with one additional carriage than we’d arrived with, and got underway. The route has changed somewhat from what was originally planned. We’re taking a more direct and less populated route to Hertsbury than originally planned. Something in the new cart must be important enough to risk it.


	24. Sleipnir Sleep Near

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After several uneventful days of travel, the party discovers what prompted their change of course. Quick decisions are made in order to prevent bloodshed.

_Lamashan 11, 1707 (RW: 6/2/2019 & 6/8/2019):_

We travelled towards Hertsbury for several days without any issue. On the third day (Lam. 8) we noticed something following us. At first glance it looked like a horse, but on further observation we were able to see that it had too many legs for that. Eight, to be specific, which leaves only one option: sleipnir. Unable to speak but definitely sentient, even if slightly duller than your average kobold. They can fly, or to be more accurate they can run on air. In practice this is usually functionally the same thing.

We discussed our tail and tried to figure out why it would be following us. Sleipnir aren’t predators, and they aren’t generally malicious. The reasonable conclusion was that there was something in the new wagon that it wanted. An optimistic man would assume it was some sort of food that they love, but anyone who’s dealt with people long enough would draw the same conclusion we did, which is that we were hauling another sleipnir. We would later learn it was a young specimen, so probably the offspring of the one following us. Morgrym managed to wheedle a confirmation of this out of Rotavem, who he said was very insistent that what he was transporting was not illegal. Well no, maybe not illegal but the moral implications are not all that pleasant. 

Of course we’re under contract and that does place something of a soft limit on our options, at least if you’re the sort to think about the consequences of your actions. El’Rick isn’t, but he also couldn’t give a fuck less about pretty much anyone other than himself. Khauldera on the other hand…. She’s not stupid, but she has certain convictions, which mostly seem to have to do with nature and a respect for it. Which is all to say that we need to figure out how to resolve this situation before her morals and her tendency towards direct action cause a problem. Bardoc as well took issue, noting that Mitra counted Sleipnir among his allies during his time on the material plane

Morgrym got the value of the creature in the cart as 6000gp from Rotavem, who said he’d be perfectly happy to give it to us to do what we please for that amount, but he had cashed in a very valuable favor to get it and wasn’t willing to let go on the basis of one woman’s moral code. Of course if we (hell if she alone) wanted to just free it there would be absolutely nothing he and his men do to stop us, but in a country controlled by merchant guilds, screwing over a member of a ruling family seems like a really bad idea. Khauldera is scheming something with Shik about releasing it in the night, and failing that she looks like she’d be perfectly happy to kill him over it. I worked with the rest of the party to come up with something that doesn’t end with us having a price on our heads.

The obvious solution was just to pay, or to trade some of our loot for it. Khauldera begrudgingly agreed to allow this, however considered it to be paying blood money and steadfastly refused to contribute a single copper of her share of loot towards the cause. Of course her knowledge regarding the value of the loot we acquired in Raktham is pretty wildly incorrect, since I had grabbed the destroyed rapiers off of the first two assassins and not mentioned to anyone that I could in fact repair them. Given this, Morgrym and Kogu agreed to front the gold from their own pockets on the understanding that they would receive payment off the top of any proceeds we made from selling items when we arrived in Hertsbury (the two afore-mentioned rapiers ought to account for this and then some). We paid the money and let the creature go free. Khaudera spent the remainder of the day and night in the empty carriage it had occupied, as best I can tell performing a cleansing or atonement ritual. I provided her some sage for the purpose that I had acquired from Old Silver Sage, the man with the lute playing pig.

At camp that night while she was still cloistered in her wagon Rotavem informed us that we may want to prepare her for Hertsbury, where sleipnir are used much as horses by most noble families. He assured us that they were very well cared for and respectfully treated, but they do perform the work of beasts of burden. In point of fact, the reason we were taking a more direct route to Hertsbury was out of concern for the sleipnir we’d been carrying. He wanted to have it cooped up in the carriage for as short a time as possible. This is all well and good, but doesn’t really assuage our concerns about what you could make a well-reasoned argument amounts to slavery. Still, we can’t change an entire country in a day, and we have a very important mission to be getting on about. Bardoc had a talk with her the next morning, and she did promise to restrain herself so long as she sees no abuse. At least part of her anger from this instance sprung from the fact it was an adolescent we were transporting. I agree with that, but again, it’s not a fight worth having for me at this point in time.

Little of note happened for the next several days. I was reading more of the book that Delphaus had given me back in Witry regarding the last time mortal agents like us were called. The very short version of it is that they were tasked with defeating an ancient red dragon at the fortress known as Scalekeep. There wasn’t really a lot of useful insight, at least not with what I know right now. 

Somewhere along the line something an idea in my head though. I spoke with Khualdera and Rotavem and we purchased two very similar sets of gold bracelets. If we’re both wearing these, I should be able to use them as a focus for a temporary bonding spell allowing me to heal her (or anyone that wears them when the spell is cast) over a distance. I know my way around a melee well enough, but I can’t stand toe-to-toe with 15 foot long monstrosities the way she and Bardoc do, and I can’t very well call a pause to a fight to go in and heal someone.

Today we were attacked by an akheg as we moved along. I took a spray of acid blood, but it wasn’t much of a fight. Even so, we found a rock to park on tonight and circled the wagons. Ankhegs are burrowers, so this should provide a decent defense. I have last watch as per usual, so I’m heading to sleep before everyone else. I’ve been practicing a spell to conjure armor in case I need to wake and fight in the middle of the night. Looking to avoid a repeat of our journey back to Witry.


	25. Hertsbury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party finishes their long journey to Hertsbury, merchant capitol of Iesparia.

_Lamashan 18, 1707 (RW: 6/8/2019):_

Over the several days and nights after my last entry we fought a 2 additional ankhegs, and at one point lost a horse during the night to something much bigger but also subterranean. Bardoc was on watch and didn’t see anything, it just disappeared under the ground. We found a very large hole where it had been, but we weren’t all that inclined to go delving. After this occurrence we decided to break and move camp, but nothing further came of it. Our progress was slowed due to the missing horse, and Morgrym rigged up a yoke for his cat Luci to help pull a carriage. I’ve never seen a feline stare murder at someone for quite that long. We passed out of ankheg territory in a few day’s time.

Getting an egg from our giant duck has basically become a morning routine at this point, such that it’s not really worth mentioning here unless something exceptional occurs. Sometimes you get a little gold, sometimes a gemstone, sometimes a magical potion, sometimes just a length of rope, etc. Of note on this trip was the egg that Shik opened which caused one of his arms to turn to metal. It still functions like an arm - it’s just made of metal. I suspect he could use it as an impromptu shield, but I wouldn’t go outside in a lightning storm if I were him. That, however, wasn’t the most interesting thing to happen with regards to the duck.

One fateful morning our routine rewarded us with something staggering, though we didn’t immediately realize it. It was an oddly small egg when considering the source, and it didn’t crack open immediately upon being picked up like the eggs usually do. The surface glimmered in many different colors, and it gave off an indistinct aura that seemed to correspond in one way or another to every school of magic. Kogu and I studied this thing for three days and just simply could not figure out what it was before we finally asked Callista to cast Identify on it. She was able to gain enough insight to identify it as containing the power to grant a single wish, as per the spell of legend that only near-demigod wielders of arcane magic or extraplanar beings that typically view mortals as insects can cast. Successfully working this spell can accomplish just about anything up to and including a limited reversal of time. This is obviously invaluable, a tool that can be applicable to any situation. We need to keep it safe. I spoke with Rotavem and purchased a very sturdy and extensively cushioned wooden box to store it in. I might work up a ward on the box too. I have to give some thought to that yet.

We arrived in Hertsbury this morning, Lamashan 18th. The city is divided into inner and outer sections, getting wealthier the closer you get to the center. What’s considered the inner city is entirely underneath the carapace of an absolutely enormous beetle. This was Uthalil, first great spawn to emerge and the first slain by Mitra during the Age of Ashes some 2200 years ago after having wrought havoc for over a century and slain countless legions of soldiers. This was the deed that put Mitra’s name on every tongue and inspired commonplace worship across all of Nolia. 

We bid farewell to Rotavem after collecting our payment for the 39 day journey, and he generously waived the clause about being entitled to 10% of any loot acquired. Maybe he was feeling generous or maybe guilty. He even split El’Rick’s pay among us and then threw in a little more as a bonus. El’Rick was not getting paid due to his conduct at multiple stops along the journey, which broke several facets of the contract - we had been instructed to generally not draw attention to ourselves and also not engage in behavior that would reflect poorly on our employer. True, we hadn’t been great about that first part, but it had always been in the process of doing services to the local community. El’Rick on the other hand... The baths incident in Etrela was bad enough, but there was an incident in Raktham that I didn’t feel like dignifying by including it in my account of that night. It involved mud and feces. I was half expecting a scene when he found out he wasn’t getting paid, but he just stormed off angrily, probably to find a beehive to stick his cock into or something.

Upon entering into the city we had to pay an entry tax plus an additional fee if we were to go armed. There was a decent amount of grumbling about this and I wasn’t innocent of it, but every government needs revenue and tax collection methods vary by locality. This was considered a simple solution for a city of trade. People heading into the city pay a tax based on what they’re bringing in to conduct business with, and in this way the government get a rough proportion of transactions. The fee to go armed was to keep what they considered riffraff from the outer city from coming in to cause trouble. It all came out to around 220gp per person, which was only a small percentage of what I knew I’d make selling our booty once we got in.

We found upon entering the dome that there was an artificial sky projected on the ceiling, and later that the hues were changed at set times of day to indicate business hours. Inside the dome, the city was further divided into several levels of different wealth and luxury, ascending towards the top. The largest was the ground floor that we found ourselves on, and we could see two more above us. They were largely arrayed in a ring around the outside, allowing the artificial light to reach everywhere. Even the level on which we stood would be considered wealthy by the majority of people living, so I could imagine what the higher ones must look like. 

At this point we split up a bit and wandered. I stuck with Bardoc and we found a forge simply called War Forge which was, of course, run by some warforged - largely mechanical humanoid, fully sentient beings. I’ve never actually met one in person. They’re an exceedingly rare sight in most of Etrela. I managed not to stare while Bardoc turned in his bulette armor with the voucher for enchantment work he’d received back at the keep, engaged the fellow in a conversation about some gauntlets they had on offer, and asked for directions to some shops run by Rotavem’s family. We got the names of two shops - Oxo Box and Gilded Ring. They were kind enough to fit him for the suit of plate Khauldera had lent him should he need it while his was being worked on. 

We departed War Forge and headed to the Oxo Box. Here they specialized in storage containers, but they were conveniently willing to buy just about everything, as they had the infrastructure to instantly transport it to a warehouse or distribution center. Bardoc, I learned, has done some trading in his day to fund himself while he was on the road, and was able to negotiate us a better selling price than we otherwise might have gotten, leveraging our familiarity with Rotavem for an extra few percent. All in all, I sold our loot for several tens of thousands, which I took six off the top of to repay Morgrym and Kogu before distributing the rest equally. While we were about, I did some light investigating and found a church outpost offering bounties for necromantic materials (so they could be destroyed), and I turned in the robe of bones from the Dero for a tidy sum of gold as well. 

We checked out the Gilded Ring, but didn’t find much of interest in our present price range. Right as the lights were changing, we ambled into a place called the Ruby Palace. We’d seen many people entering here, but there weren’t nearly enough inside for how many had entered. There WAS a guarded staircase leading downward. Odd. Might be something worth checking out. Kogu was already there perusing the shelves when we walked in.The store itself sold a variety of enchanted items. Belts, jewelry, that sort of thing. Bardoc got to discussing some belts with the shopkeep, a half-elf girl who was unsubtly flirting with him, and by flirting I mean all but outright throwing herself at him. He was politely and uncomfortably trying to ignore this. I managed to keep a straight face.

We’d sort of lost track of Khauldera and Morgrym at this point, but they’re perfectly capable of taking care of themselves so we went to find lodging. On a street corner, we found a 2 story tall, unassuming brick building with a sign declaring it the Crossroads Inn. Sounded pretty boisterous inside, more so than you would think possible for a building that size even. We went in through the heavy oak door and found ourselves in a lounge type area with a ceiling that must have been seven stories up. That wasn’t the strangest thing about it though. I’ve seen demiplanes before, even if I’ve never seen one used for an Inn in the middle of a city. What I’ve never seen is an inn serving fiends, angels, fae, demons, djinn, and many other powerful and usually violently opposed entities all under one roof. Behind the bar stood a pit fiend wearing a suit and a top hat, slinging drinks to unveiled succubi who were serving them around the bar. 

Bardoc told me after a lingering glance that the fiend was not in fact evil. So…. what the hell? We approached the bar he jovially introduced himself as Zselbor and welcomed us to his inn, which abided a strict nonviolence policy (personally enforced, with violence when necessary). He may have been reformed, but would still happily toss around anyone who came into his establishment and started trouble, he explained. He asked if we were looking for rooms, which of course we all were unless Bardoc planned to go spend the night with his half-elven admirer. We splurged a bit and got private rooms with hot baths (self heating, he proudly pointed out). I happily disrobed and splashed some water over myself in my very nicely appointed room. I am about to head back down to the lounge to meet Bardoc and Kogu for a few drinks. I’m not going to bother wearing my armor because if a fight breaks out and we become targets among this company, the armor’s not going to do me any good anyways. I will take Callista though - I’m entirely uncomfortable leaving her out of sight in a place where someone actually capable of stealing (or would it be kidnapping?) her might have the opportunity.


	26. Alcohol Hurts to Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short entry Erend felt compelled to write after few hours in a hotel lounge revealed a startling piece of information.

_Lamashan 18, 1707 (RW: 6/8/2019):_

Arriving back down in the lounge immediately after my last entry, we spotted an empty couple sofas near a fireplace and claimed them as our own. I set Callista down on the floor at my feet, it being somewhat awkward trying to sink into a cushy sofa with a warhammer strapped to your back. Shortly, one of the succubi servers came over to take a drink order. We asked what was good and local. She recommended a phoenix whiskey - specialty of the Crossroads Inn. We ordered three and sat by the fire for a while smoking my good cigars, exhaling in a golden cloud (courtesy of the whiskey), and enjoying the feeling of safety. Ironic when considering the number of beings here that could probably kill us with a thought, but all indications were that if they started something they’d be dealing with a very irate, very powerful demon who just wanted some damn peace in his little slice of existence.

Some indeterminate amount of time after we sat down and right as we were in the bottom quarter of our drinks, we heard a loud boom and looked towards the center of the room. Standing there in radiant splendor, power fairly emanating from him in waves, was a white winged, silver-grey skinned, 9 foot tall honest-to-god angel. I had had my doubts about the individual who sent us on our quest months ago in Witry, but this being was very clearly the real thing. While I was still coughing the drink that I’d incorrectly swallowed out of my lungs, Callista called out to him louder than I’d ever heard her speak before. She called him Sarondial, and he heard her, appeared to recognize her voice, and headed over to us. He addressed her with a tone that said he didn’t expect to see her here, or perhaps didn’t expect to see her as a hammer.

I tried to wipe the stupid look off my face and scooted over to offer him a seat, then a cigar and a light, both of which he accepted. He and Callista proceeded to have a brief conversation that made it clear they’d known each other very well centuries ago. She asked about her father, the first time I’d heard her mention him. It stood to reason he would have been a powerful individual himself given that her powers originated from her celestial bloodline, and if the way his daughter turned out was any indication he would be a man of exemplary moral character. All this I was musing to myself in the back of my head while I listened to them speak when one of their question/answer pairs lit fire to the idea of the man I’d been building in my mind. Callista asked if her father was still in Elysium, and in his response Sarondial casually referred to him by honorific and name…… “Our. Lord. Mitra”.

So about that alcohol in my lungs. I should probably hit myself with a healing spell because it can’t possibly be healthy to inhale this much spirit. I didn’t even bother trying to wipe the stupid look off my face as I confirmed though wheezing coughs what I had just heard. Callista is the daughter of Mitra. I did hear it right. Sarondial is the right hand of Mitra, and this is in fact how they had come to know each other. So that’s a thing that is, and I’m sure I haven’t felt the full brunt of that revelation yet.

There was more conversation that eventually steered toward our mission after some casual dalliance. I learned Sarondial had a fondness for the mortal plane, particularly it’s booze. I learned the angel that had tasked us with our quest was named Volshana. Sarondial mentioned something about the symbol on our hands being difficult to find, but didn’t clarify what that meant. I asked for any advice he could offer, and his only words were “Don’t fuck it up”, which was somewhat less useful than I would have preferred. I’m willing to take it on faith that he has good reason. Before he left he ordered us a drink of his own invention: a Sun’s Glory. It was floral and citrusy, with a strong undertone of honey. Callista knew the exact recipe, and I got the impression she had helped create it. Everyone has their thing.

Sarondial departed with another boom after finishing his drink. We all spent some time just listening to conversations around us, trying to get a finger on what the local gossip was. Might provide some things to do tomorrow, people that might need help, so on and so forth.

We came back to our rooms and I felt this warranted recording before bed. Now I’m going to go enjoy that impossibly soft mattress and bedspread, and wait for the grenade that was just casually lobbed into my mind to go off.


	27. Musings on Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erend does some shopping and gets lost in his own head while his companions get them into trouble investigating a series of murders.

_Lamashan 19, 1707 (RW: 6/9/2019):_

This morning I took my time up in my room. I had a proper bath with soap that smelled of vanilla and tobacco. I combed out my beard an applied scented oil to it. I even took the chance to clean my armor. When I was good and ready in late morning I ambled down to the lounge where I met Bardoc and Kogu. Zselbor made us breakfast on his wood stove that I couldn’t actually see any wood in. 

I had some things I’d been hoping to get done (but had slipped my mind yesterday) once I got to a city with a proper forge. We headed to the War Forge and I handed in some diamonds and silver ore I’d been carrying around. The diamonds weren’t large or clear enough to be of any use in magical workings in their current form, and I can’t really do anything right now with the silver. I was hoping to have it all ground to powder, which would make both materials useful for spellcasting, and which they were happy to do for free with any purchase. Since I’d done some cursory research on Elflien and happened to know it had a lot of jungle territory, I purchased some machetes. As those didn’t cost much and I didn’t want to take advantage, I also purchased a couple applications of cold iron weapon blanch. We’d had the experience of needing but not having cold iron once and that was all I needed.

I asked for directions to any local map sellers, and was directed to Cart-O-Graphs, a shop run out of a cart by an eccentric halfing. Well, more specifically I got directions to where he usually set up, being a cart and all. We did find the place and purchased a nautical chart noting trade routes across the entire western coast of Nolia. I asked what he had in the way of Elflein maps, which was nothing official however, he did have an older map of Maren, the bordering nation of Elflein that refuses to officially acknowledge its existence as a sovereign state. The proprietor was disappointed by our general lack of enthusiasm towards maps and lamented that everyone simply views them as tools, when in fact to him they are an art form worthy of appreciation. I respect that viewpoint, but I don’t really share it. Still, it’s probably good some people do because cartography is an absolutely essential discipline to the modern world.

This was around the time the grenade went off. To be frank, I spent most of the day after that point in a haze as the full magnitude of what I happened the night previous hit my thoughts like a hail of shrapnel, shredding them. Maybe it didn’t hit Bardoc as hard, maybe it just hasn’t hit him yet, but we were having a conversation with a being of extraordinary power who stood at our god’s right hand. That’s really nothing short of incredible for a man such as myself. Not only that, but I am entrusted by the soul of his very own daughter with her safety and her divine quest? I’ve always taken care to not let my ego overinflate - it’s something drilled into all children of the Blazinghelm royal line. My lack of brazen zealotry has been cited by some as a means to question the depth of my faith, but I’ve never felt you needed to shout your beliefs from every mountaintop to be a good follower of our god, and I’ve always been suspicious of those that do. 

Mitra spent all his time on Oerth helping people. He gave them knowledge, he gave them healing, he slew their enemies, and he guided their nations. He didn’t ask to be given worship and adoration, but he earned it all the same. People WANTED to follow him because they saw him as a shining beacon of good to aspire to. It was never about becoming a god, whether or not he was always destined to be one; It was about doing everything he could to aid his fellow man. That’s why I left my home to travel the roads and wilds of Etrela in the first place. I didn’t know what the future would bring, but I felt it was only right that if I was to wield the power of Mitra, then I should spend time wielding it as he did. My home is a wonderful place, but as such there’s not a lot of need there. If I am to rule one day, it’s only right that I serve first. Outside of the Bayraines is where the need is, thus that’s where I went.

These are the ideas that were bouncing around in my head while Bardoc got us involved in investigating a series of murders. A gnome, Gerbery I believe, thought he had found a pattern and connections between several seemingly unrelated killings that had happened recently. There were tiefling births, several marriages something about a lesser merchant house trying to increase its standing, some other clues I don’t remember. I was pretty much just along for the ride. Got a bit electrocuted at one point by somebody’s defensive perimeter. The consumption of several mighty strong drinks at the end of the day didn’t help my memory any, but I mostly just drank them to avoid being rude. We got a shared room tonight with multiple beds to save some gold, but still with the private bath. Hopefully my head is a bit clearer tomorrow after a good night’s sleep


	28. One Hopping Mad Gnome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A murder mystery is solved, and some new prospects for exciting adventure present themselves.

_Lamashan 21, 1707 (RW: 6/9/2019 & 6/15/2019):_

I just had to write the words “good night’s sleep” in my journal. We were awakened in the wee hours of the morning by some dretches in our room. A few more seconds and they might have done us serious harm, but they weren’t quiet or fast enough. Of course I slept with Callista right next to my bed, and the worst they really managed to do before we killed them was release an incredibly noxious gas staggered us for a few seconds. Bardoc ran two of them through, and I smashed one down onto the floor with Callista, finding him surprisingly bouncy and deciding in the moment to pull the upward momentum of the hammer head as it came off the strike into an arc behind my back and hit the dretch with an underhanded swing that sent him flying clear across the room and into the wall. They disappeared as they were slain, suggesting that they’d been summoned. Bardoc ran to the door and caught a glimpse of leathery wings turning the corner at the end of the hall, which he likened to a demon that Zselbor had been threatening the night before. Troublemaker. 

We went down and spoke with Zselbor, who hastily set us up with a different room due to ours now smelling of cabbage, and promised to let us know anything he found out about this assailant. After that, fuck it. We put the alarm stone on the door and went back to bed. The rest of the night passed uneventfully.

The next morning as we were eating breakfast down in the lounge, Morgrym came walking in, saw us, and asked just where the hell we’d been. He’d been keeping an eye out for us all day yesterday while he shopped for a gift to send his halfling sweetheart Brii. No sign of Khauldera though. Maybe she’s working out some aggression at a training gym. Not going to worry about it yet. Like I said before, she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. Bardoc caught Morgrym up to speed on the events of the past couple days, which I listened in on while munching on crispy bacon and pouring coffee down my throat. I’d been so glazed yesterday I didn’t really catch any of it. To be honest I still don’t know that I have it all straight. Lots of family relations, marriages, divorces, children, and murders. He seems to have a good grasp on it though, so I just used him as a reference the rest of the day.

Somehow Shik had found his way into the crossroads and gotten into the food stock. Zselbor was less than amused, but we paid for the damages and everything was square. We figured we’d take Shik with us both to keep him out of trouble while Khauldera was off wherever she was and also because we might need someone sneaky. Now being more aware of what we were dealing with, I suggested through half a mouthful of eggs we try to find the body of the most recent victim. I didn’t say at the time, but I had something a bit more effective than studying wounds in mind.

We made a brief stop at a man named Tilmert’s house, where we’d visited twice and been electrocuted once the day before. Tilmert was the son-in-law of the primary suspect Fravicip. Fravicip was a dwarf at the head of a minor merchant house. Tilmert’s wife Aemeki (Fravicip’s daughter by his ex-wife Fahlim) worked at a tea shop in town and together they had a very young tiefling baby Ivula. Aemeki’s step-father had been the most recent victim and now her mother was missing. Aemeki was not home when we stopped in, and Tilmert looked like hell on account of the child being something of a little terror. Shik surprised us all by taking to the baby at once while we conversed with Tilmert. We asked where the most recent victim would be and he directed us to a morgue in the outer city, said they should still be there since it had only been 3 days. Tilmert practically begged us to leave Shik with him on account of the latter’s ability to placate the infant. We consented.

We made our way out way to the morgue and talked our way in. Procedures required we be on official church or city business to gain access, but the desk clerk was somewhere between easy going and apathetic (he seemed good natured enough, just not terribly concerned about enforcing regulations where he didn’t see a reason), and so just let us write our own letter declaring our business. Two of us are church officials, after all. He directed us to the bodies brought in roughly 3 days ago, and we were able to determine which was our victim by process of elimination. The mortuary was staffed by golem servitors, which acknowledged us with a nod of the head when told we were taking one of the bodies to a private exam room for closer inspection.

Once behind the curtain I swept for any sort of magical sensors in the area, because I did not need any alarms going off over what I was planning to do next. The legal status of Necromancy in northern Iesparia is shaky at best and it’s outright banned in Hertsbury. The spells I planned to use were not of the kind outright forbidden by Mitra. Those mostly include the animating of undead, which is strictly forbidden as it binds and corrupts the body’s former soul. These spells drew upon some of the same principles though and would almost certainly set off a necromancy sensor. One in particular really pushes up against that line and is best used with great discretion. I didn’t care to provoke a confrontation with the authorities. 

Once I was as certain as I could be that there was nothing to give us away, I had Bardoc and Morgrym stand guard while I first restored the slightly decomposed body to the state it had been in when it died. This is a spell I’ve in fact performed many times during my duties at the temple I studied in back home. I did this to make the next parts easier. To begin with we simply examined the body and found it remarkably intact, save for a jagged cut across the throat that was consistent with a dretch claw if our minor wounds from the previous night were used as a basis of comparison. Then I laid my hands upon the victim’s chest for roughly 10 minutes and focused on slowly building a connection to its soul in whatever plane it had departed to. This is a more delicate process than that of creating undead, as the goal is not to bind and enslave without care for the soul’s wellbeing, but merely to reconnect briefly - typically to gain vital information they may have possessed in life. Immediately as I finished this spell I spun off another to deaden sounds leaving the immediate vicinity so we wouldn’t draw attention. 

The poor man sat bolt upright and looked around rapidly. It took me a minute to calm him, and I apologized for disturbing his rest but explained we were attempting to find his killer before more people were hurt. The nature of the spell was such that we were only able to ask a limited number of questions, but we did manage to gain some valuable information, albeit not as much as we’d hoped. He had been asleep when he was attacked, and was already fatally wounded by the time he knew what was happening to him. He never got a good look at his attacker before he’d lost too much blood to remain conscious. He had believed himself to be in danger from Fravicip. His wife Fahlim had told him she may be a target because she knew too much, but he didn’t know what she meant by that. She had been planning to go into hiding, though he knew not where. He believes his step-daughter Aemeki may know.

As the interplanar connection between his soul and body unravelled, I eased him back to the table and bid him to rest in peace. I performed the rites over his body that had surely been done before, but I felt a repeat was warranted given the circumstances. We returned the body to where we’d retrieved it from and left, thanking the attendant on our way out. As we headed back towards the inner city we agreed that Aemeki was in danger. She was probably in more danger than Tilmert, but not knowing where she worked we would have to speak to Tilmert again before we could find her.

We headed back to Tilmert’s house and arrived to find the baby asleep on the floor with Shik, and Tilmert much refreshed having taken the opportunity to bathe and put on some clean clothes. We related what we had learned, weaving much of it into the conversation in a way that obscured precisely HOW we had learned it. He agreed his wife was in danger and begged us to please rush to save her, giving us the name of the tea shop she worked at (Imperial Leaf) and the location, a part of town called the Jade Corridor. I left him with a flask of holy water which I knew wasn’t going to stop anything very powerful by itself, but was surely better than nothing if a demon came barging in the door. The Jade Corridor was not overly large, and we found her tea shop quickly. It was a very small establishment wedged in between two larger buildings. The tea was exceptional, and she insisted on serving us so as to not look too suspicious while we conversed. After our pot was done and she better understood the danger she was facing, she asked her coworker to cover the rest of the day’s business and agreed to come with us.

On the way back to her home Bardoc noticed us being tailed by a tall, dark robed figure. We positioned Aemeki in the middle of our group and prepared to fight. We took no overtly aggressive actions until we saw the hands of the figure moving in what were definitely somatic spellcasting gestures. I began to wind out a protection spell and Bardoc started firing up his paladin battle magic, when suddenly a portal opened beneath the black clad figure and swallowed him up before immediately closing. Right. Didn’t want a fight in the middle of the street then I guess. We made it the rest of the way to her Aemeki’s home safely.

Aemeki told us once we were (relatively) safely locked indoors us that if her mother had believed herself to be in danger she would likely have hidden in the Hop. None of us had heard of this place before so she explained. The Hop was a pocket dimension, created one day after a presumed accident at a local university. Several city blocks had just vanished, leaving a pit in the ground. The area had eventually been rebuilt but the bold, stupid, or unlucky sometimes told stories of stumbling into a strange place with houses built on a crag out of what looked to be salvaged old stone and not seeming to exist out past a few hundred feet in any direction, beyond which it looked like the world they had just came from was stretched across the outside of a glass dome. Their stories were always hard to verify though, since the locations where they claimed to have stumbled through reality were always found to be perfectly mundane on later inspection. Nevertheless, it seemed to be generally believed that the Hop exists, even though most people considered it foolhardy to go searching for it as those who didn’t return in failure rarely returned at all. If the stories from the people who did return were to be believed, this was due to the fact that while the entrances were apparently always changing, so were the exits, and for those with no magical talent detecting such a rift without stumbling through it entirely by accident was nigh-impossible. You could pay somebody to get you out, they said, but the price was steep for the common man.

Fortunately for us, Aemeki knew the location of a seemingly permanent entrance. Also fortunately for us, we have a lot more money to throw around than the common man. So that covered entrance and exit. We got a description of her mother, learned what we could, and left. We were concerned about the safety of Tilmert while we were gone, but he assured us he had arranged for small armada of paid guards that night. We left Shik too. Bardoc had the idea to ask Zselbor about the Hop, so we stopped by and did that. We told him what we were about presently and that we believed the demon from the other night was behind it. He said again that he had always been a troublemaker. He just asked us to please not bring the fight into his establishment. Fair. With that we headed to Cheek & Sundry, the location of the apparent entrance.

It was after close of business by this point, so we did a fair amount of pounding on the door, followed by a brief discussion of how we might break in and if such an action was ethically justified in this circumstance. Fortunately the owner eventually came to ask us just what the hell we wanted. He wasn’t really feeling all that inclined to let us in, but Morgrym and I weighed his hand down with some gold pieces and he acquiesced. He warned us we’d likely die in there. Morgrym bet him the bribe money that we wouldn’t. I chuckled. The portal was back in the privy just as we’d been told.

The Hop was much as described. We found ourselves standing on a crag with the world stretched around us. The weather was grey and a light rain ran in rivulets from small stone houses. One building stood tall above the rest and had some sort of airship docked on it with a large balloon fastened to the top. There were maybe a dozen people going about their business, mostly of the avian humanoid aarakocra species. As such, it didn’t take long at all to find the gnome Fahlim. She wasn’t looking well. Pale and with a white stripe through her hair, she looked to be in the early stages of the bleaching. Understandable given what she’s been through recently, but a terrible shame nonetheless. 

Upon being asked what she knew about her ex-husband Fravicip, she freely and calmly told us that she had killed him. That was interesting given how recently we had seen and spoken with him. She elaborated that she had killed him years ago after finding out he made a pact with a demon to raise his family’s standing. The price was to be his first 3 grandchildren. She’d been thorough, and yet had since seen him carrying on around town like nothing had happened. As she knew where the body was hidden, she knew he hadn’t simply been resurrected. Whatever had taken her prior husband’s place did not pursue her, so she carried on with her life always keeping an eye over her shoulder. That is until her 3rd grandchild was born and her children and their spouses started dying. Having been able to do nothing to protect them, then losing her new husband in an attempt on her own life, she had fled to where she could die on her own terms.

We discussed what Fravicip was then. Bardoc reminded us that he’d learned from Zselbor the night before that the troublemaker demon was living in the city in the guise of a humanoid. That snapped it all into place pretty neatly then. Fravicip was the demon; aeshma is what Zselbor had called him. We couldn’t be 100% certain as of yet, but fortunately there was an easy way to check. He would be hiding under the guise of a polymorphing spell, and I’ve yet to encounter an enchantment that Callista can’t smash through. So we just needed her to hit him with that and if he’s the demon he’d probably attack us immediately, at which point our course is clear.

We convinced Fahlim to return with us, planning to stash her at the Crossroads until the threat had been dealt with. She reluctantly agreed, and we climbed the lighthouse to the balloon ship contraption. A sign declared it the Planar Express, and for an appreciable fee (paid by Bardoc) we were transported back to Hertsbury, landing actually pretty close to the Crossroads. We went back inside and decided to rest the night since we were tired, Tilmert’s household was heavily guarded, and I didn’t have any suitable spells ready for fighting a demon. We got Fahlim good and drunk - gods know she could use it. She passed out in a chair in our room. The next morning Zselbor was somewhat grumpy that we’d apparently given him a trouble magnet to watch over, but Morgrym paid him a 500gp deposit and it seemed to placate him.

Off to war then. Just outside the crossroads we found an empty alley and briefly deployed the campfire bead. I used the heat to apply some of the cold iron weapon blanch to Callista, giving Morgrym a pouch of it for some of his arrows. We appointed Morgryn our front man, since there was at least a chance this aesma hadn’t seen him clearly and he might be able to keep him occupied and distracted while the rest of us moved in. We hid around the corner from the door while Morgrym spoke to “Fravicip”, casting defensive magic on ourselves. As he gained entry, we crept around towards the door and peeked in to see Fravicip walking away towards his bar area to fetch a pair of drinks. I stepped through the door with Callista raised and she hit him with her dispel. What I can say about that is that we had not come to the wrong conclusion.

In the span of several seconds the dwarf we’d known as Fravicip rapidly flowed into the familiar shape of the demon we’d seen in the Crossroads. He stood 8 feet tall, leanly muscled with basalt skin and black bat-like wings. Veins of a black and glowing red substance seemed to be wrapped several times from each wrist to shoulder. He lowered his arms and the substance flowed to the floor, expanding rapidly and forming 2 oozes each as big as a horse and pulsing with dull red light. I picked up the smell of brimstone on the air almost at once and just did what I was going to do anyways, which was chanel as much unshaped divine power as I could down onto his head to smite him where he stood. I hadn’t been under any real delusion that I’d be able to kill him outright with this, but I’d hoped for a little more effect than what I got. I caught the oozes in the effect too though and they did seem to reel, as much as you can ever tell with oozes anyways. 

The demon stepped closer to me, hoisting a jagged spear as he did but electing to instead hurl foul magic at me. The spell briefly sickened me, but I managed to sidestep behind Bardoc as he finished keying in his battle magic and moved forward to slash a glowing red wound into our enemy’s thigh with his cold iron blade. Fighting down my breakfast which was presently fighting its way back up, I summoned in an archon hound and set it upon the demon. The hound’s performance was less than exemplary, but it was more a matter of atrocious luck than lack of martial skill. Kogu used the same mirror spell from the bulette fight to get in close and support Bardoc while his raven circled near the ceiling, belting out a birdsong that somehow carried the effect of the lanky half-orc’s own instrumentals. Guess he took to that bird as quickly as it took to him. Morgrym did his best to draw off the oozes as they slowly crept towards us, but he didn’t have much luck hurting them with arrows, and he’s growing weary of getting the hell beaten out of him by things that are much larger and stronger, so he didn’t step up to try his axe. I threw out a lot of healing energy myself and hit the Aeshma with a blast of pure divine fire from Callista. When I felt well enough to manage the throw I conjured a spike of cold iron and hurled it squarely into his chest. The area around the wound blazed red as the sustained contact weakened him, and his luck against my summoned hound ran out as Bardoc and the archon cut him apart. Bardoc ended the fight with a mighty underhanded swing that cut up through the groin and well into the demon’s abdomen. That smell lingering with the brimstone was something I would be happy to forget.

The fight wasn’t completely over at the death of the demon, though his expiration changed it from a high stakes lethal confrontation to a casual game of “now how do we kill this shit”. I redirected my hound to swipe at one of them, which he succeeded at... cleaving it in two and leaving us with 2 horse-sized oozes in its place, bringing us to a grand total of 3. So slicing them was out. I was feeling good after acing that demon with the iron spike, so I took a gamble and surrounded myself in cold fire, stepped up to one of the oozes, and bellowed a challenge. It smacked me harder than I expected, but as I was reeling just a bit, I saw its surface hardening where the it had touched my defensive spell. That gave me an idea, so I ran back away from it, taking another blow in the process, then conjured about 15 gallons of water in the air above it. The water dropped down in an explosion of steam, and in a few seconds when it cleared, the ooze was frozen into an obsidian statue. I quickly repeated the procedure for the other two, and that was that.

In the aftermath of the fight Morgrym evaluated the demon corpse, determined he could sell the wings, and asked my assistance in removing them. Bardoc started collecting valuables from the house. When we pointed out that maybe, you know, the family of the real Fravicip might want those things since they’re technically inheritance, he said of course we were going to take them to the family. I’m sure it looked real good, us rolling up with all the valuables from the house, saying “Here, we found all this.” I feel like there’s an implied second sentence there of “Keep what you really want, but we wanna sell the rest, and you know we already took it soooooooooo”. Guards drawn by the comotion had begun to gather outside the house. Morgrym left after chipping off some prime pieces of obsidian from the former oozes and gave them a less than charitable interpretation of Bardoc’s actions, but Kogu and I hauled out the carcass to show them that no, we did not in fact just break in to loot the place. They weren’t entirely convinced but Morgrym offered to go with a couple guards to the Crossroads and retrieve Fahlim to corroborate our story.

When they returned she gave them the rundown, including a confession for the murder of her former husband. They seemed somewhat reluctant when taking her into custody and I admit I was a bit taken aback by that turn of events. Logically it all follows of course, but I’ve spent a lot of time in small towns and villages and with at last one foot outside the law, and my position gives me a more credibility to throw around than the average person. Not infinite, of course, but significant. I hadn’t even thought about legal entanglements when she’d told us she slit her husband’s throat for selling his grandchildren to a demon. I’m still working on thinking situations like this though before acting, though I’d say I’ve made substantial progress since Masalworth. Traumatic guilt is a good motivator.

Anyway the guards let us take the valuables to the family and the family did freely give us the scrolls, scroll cases, wand, and potions we’d found, since none of them were really magic users anyway. There were several other items that were tainted in some way too. We had a a crystal skull, a gilded demon skull, and several censers that reeked of demonic incense. Then of course Bardoc kept the spear as that was a personal possession of the demon’s and therefore ours now. I was able to sell some of our spoils before close of business today, but some will have to be taken to certain, shall we say, specialty shops that are only present on the higher levels of the city. We’re planning a jaunt up there at some point before we leave. We have ample time yet until Bardoc’s armor is complete. While I was out selling the items I stopped into Oxo Box check in on the Mithral vein sale. She told me she hadn’t had any direct contacts that could buy it, but she had arranged us a meeting with the Merchant’s council on the morning on Lam. 27. That gives us 5 full days after today, and I’ve found the way to fill them.

It had occurred to me somewhere this side of the mountains that we are not always going to be able to stop and spend time in cities getting equipment made and upgraded, and that even when we do the cost may at times be prohibitive. It would be beneficial to be able to make and upgrade various magical accessories while we’re on the road or as we have time. A little here, a little there. Obviously more useful for crafting new items as opposed to upgrading existing ones since the latter deprives someone of a piece of their combat loadout, but still. I spoke with an artificer by the name of Odrami Battleheart at the local Mitran garrison. His workload has been light as of late, and since I have a solid grounding in many areas relevant to this pursuit already (spellcraft, tailoring, jewelcraft) he agreed to take me on as a student. He believes he can teach me the necessary manipulations of magic in 5 days’ time. I’m paying 400 gold pieces to the garrison coffers for this service. He assured me that he is well-compensated, and that his job is in a more general sense to serve the soldiers of Mitra, so he doesn’t require a personal payment. 

Since Odrami is only planning to work with me about 8 hours per day, that should leave time at night for drinking and information gathering. We’d heard of a lake running unusually low and a flooded crypt at the bottom. Might be something to investigate while we’re in town. I know Morgrym wants to work with his cat on some new tricks, and he was also planning to do some digging on the cause of the refugees from the Gallancaster Ridge seeing as that’s where he was born and raised. Bardoc mentioned he was going to spend some time studying with the paladins at the garrison to enhance his healing abilities. I’m not sure what Kogu is planning to do and I’m still not entirely sure where Khauldera is, but I’ll use a spell to contact her in a few days if I haven’t heard anything. I gave Kogu the Atlantean journal I’d found to see if he can make any sense out of it. I’ll take another crack at it if he doesn’t have any luck.


	29. Five Mercifully Uneventful Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erend accomplishes a few minor tasks and muses on what to craft first while enjoying an unprecedented five days without anything trying to kill him. The party reunites.

_Lamashan 26, 1707 (RW: In Between Session & 7/6/2019):_

Several things of import have happened over the last couple days.

My training is now complete. I think for my first project I’m going to attempt to make myself a moderately powerful cloak of resistance. I know something of creating and maintaining clothing thanks to many years spent on the road, so it should make for a good first effort. I’ve been musing in my free time about other useful items I could make. Been working out a list on another piece of paper. I’ve even got a couple ideas for some really neat pieces of equipment that as far as I know haven’t been done before. Some of it will definitely require help with the spellwork from Kogu or Morgrym (he has access to some interesting magical effects that I simply can’t replicate), but I don’t see why that would be a problem.

It occurred to me and some point that I should really find some way to lock this journal down in case I lose it or die, since as of late theres been some really sensitive information recorded in it. I consulted Callista on this, since if the books in her library are any indication she knows something of this sort of spellwork. She was able to guide me, even lend me some amount of power to put the same sort of curse on my journal that she placed on her most sensitive books. It’s blood magic, done by blood and only able to be undone by the same without expending absolutely enormous amount of power relative to what was used to create it. Knowing that, I’m not shocked Navenna couldn’t read the books. With how powerful Callista was, I doubt much short of an actual god could have busted through that curse via brute force. If anyone but me, my immediate family, or our descendants tries to read this journal they’ll be compelled to stop, which will progress to horrible mental anguish, which will progress to actual physical pain, which will progress to actual physical damage in the form of blindness as we saw in the tower. It would take an exceptionally powerful will (or magical compulsion) to even get past the first stage. I’ve recorded instructions for a ritual to remove the curse on a random page in the middle of the journal in case it ever becomes necessary.

A thought crossed my mind and I asked Callista if there had been any mana blights in the Bayraines. She said there had not. I asked about the Gallancaster ridge. She said there hadn’t been any blight, but there had been a weak point and a tower constructed. So their problem could be related to our quest. It’s probably related, if we’re going to be honest. I asked why she hadn’t said anything before. She replied had wanted to wait for Morgrym to find out more about the nature of the threat before she shared that information too widely around for obvious reasons. Fair enough I suppose.

I had an inspiration to go speak to the halfling at the Cart-O-Graphs regarding the map on my back. Seemed like the sort of thing he would be interested in and I’m a little embarrassed I hadn’t thought of it before. He was indeed excited by it. He called it a deco style map, which didn’t mean much to me, but he said the last time maps were made in this style was the late 1300s. He mentioned that he’d seen one other like it in passing on a woman recently, maybe a pirate. She had also sought him out. I pressed him for any information he could give me, physical description, etc. She was a human woman with curly black hair. She seemed to know her way around town, though her skin tone and facial geometry marked her as foreign to this land (not that that made her stand out in any way in a port city). Lot of tattoos, specifically of flowers. He knew her name too, or at least the name that was tattooed on her: Antonia the Undying. Don’t know why he didn’t lead with that... With a name like that I have to imagine a few people have heard of her at least. I should ask around. I tossed him a gold piece for his time as I left and he offered me one back if I’d let him copy the map, but I have the feeling it may be too important to go spreading around. He told me I sounded just like her. I did promise I would let him know what I could if I ever figured it out though. 

Tonight while we sat about lounging in the Crossroads, Khualdera came strolling through the door. She’d spent the last week with a dryad near the center of town, just learning about herself and her recently (relatively speaking) discovered aptitudes. Turns out she has some sort of fae ancestry. Moderately interesting. She had collected 5 eggs from the duck in that time though, which oddly hadn’t cracked open the instant she picked them up the way they usually did. She cracked open the first one in the lounge and a bountiful feast sprang forth, which drew an irritated sound from Zselbor as he pointed towards the “No outside food and drink in the lounge” sign. True, I hadn’t seen him enforce it too strictly in the past, but a banquet is a bit different than a personal hip flask. He offered us a rate on a small room to open the rest of them in, a pocket dimension that would contain any disadvantageous effects. The next egg turned Khauldera into a cat. The egg after that turned her back. The egg after that we weren’t quite sure exactly what it did, but she said she felt less capable somehow - just a little bit. That feeling passed with the 5th. Rather anticlimactic all-in-all.

We found a place to put her in our room. We will discuss our next moves in the morning. Our meeting with the merchant council is at mid day.


	30. A Day of Commerce and Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party has their meeting with the merchant's guild, offloads their wyvern eggs, and puts been weighing on them for months to rest

_Lamashan 27, 1707 (RW: 7/6/2019):_

Morgrym received a letter from Brii saying that Masalworth has been destroyed. A rift formed in the pit where the tower had been and demons started emerging. Takden’s spells started failing and now she’s gone missing. The townsfolk fled - at least the ones that weren’t tortured or killed. Sobering. He revealed this during a morning conference in our room. We caught Bardoc and Kogu up on the events of Masalworth since they hadn’t been there. I got the impression Bardoc knew more about them than he was letting on. Not necessarily that there was any ill intent towards us, just that he was hiding something. I later learned from Khauldera that she’d sensed it too.

I brought up the subject of placing a ward on the box containing the Wish egg. I figured something that powerful should be protected as best we can manage. I know how to create a glyph of warding, but I wanted to consult with the party on the best type of trap to set, which is to say lethal, [ostensibly] nonlethal, or just really really noisy. I didn’t want to end up killing some pickpocket kid who’s worst crime was being willing to do whatever it took to put food in his belly. Morgrym suggested encasing it in stone (via a stone shaping spell), which I felt would make it too hard to access in the event we needed it quickly. We talked about various audible alarms but eventually decided we should in fact go for something with lethal potential since the box wasn’t going to be carried anyplace that a common thief would be likely to get hands on it. Morgrym was getting bored and dragging the conversation in another direction so I just decided on an explosion of acid. That should act as one hell of a nasty surprise and probably also double as an audible alarm when the thief begins screaming in agony. I requested a small drop of blood from everyone present so I could key the ward to just the 5 of us. Khauldera provided altogether more of her blood than I really needed.

After breakfast we had some time, which proved fortuitous as we were in need of some new attire for our merchant council meeting. A little research (mostly Bardoc’s) revealed that the appropriate garb for an occasion like this would be a formal head scarf. Him, Morgrym and I, went to purchase these. We stopped with Bardoc back at the Ruby Palace with the half-elf girl that had been throwing herself at him the other day. He negotiated a discount with her on a Headband of Alluring Charisma. Every advantage you can get, I suppose. He got the discount, and, well, sounds like she’s going to get the D. So everyone’s getting something they want.

Our meeting was at a spire near as tall as the beetle itself. Khualdera wasn’t really looking forward to this I could tell, so I suggested she go and see if she can find some kobolds to sell those wyvern eggs we found on the other side of the mountain to. They’re worth solid money, but as wyverns are smarter even than sleipnir, most of us aren’t really comfortable selling them to someone that’s going to use them as slaves. Many kobolds idolize wyverns though since Wyverns are cousins to dragons which kobolds also revere, so it’s a fair guess that the eggs would be treated well in their care. She took Kogu and Shik with her. 

As we approached the tower we were stopped by a group of guards who were adamant that we would not be continuing armed, but said that of course we could check our weapons with them. They seemed pretty straight. I sent Callista an feeling of Inquiry and got reassurance back, so I consented and everyone else followed suit. That done, we introduced ourselves and were escorted to the appropriate teleportation sigil. Our escort stepped through and we took a moment to cast a few bits of charm magic on ourselves, half of which wore off in the 15 minutes we waited on the other side of the sigil for the council to be done with their previous meeting. There were large windows in the reception chamber that looked out onto the city, and the view afforded was simply incredible. That gave us something to do at least.

The meeting took place in a chamber with vaulted ceilings and a kidney bean shaped table seating the leading members of all the major merchant houses. Several of the noble races were well-represented. I was happy to see fellow dwarves up among the well-to-do. I spoke first, but I’m not much of a merchant. I got their attention by telling them of the huge mithril vein and then seemingly did my best to discourage them from it by telling them of the derro threat and how we’d nearly died. I was just trying to be ethical, but I can see how it probably sounded. Bardoc had better luck. We were made two offers. We took the one that wasn’t in cash but rather in the form of a ship and crew from the lady Seldanna Lory'nelis, elven. Bardoc got her to throw in the passes we would need to access the upper tier of the city. The deed to the ship was signed over to the three of us, the name slot being left blank as tradition held that a change in a vessel’s ownership is accompanied by a change in name. The sailors who crew her are paid up to the end of their next journey, and after that we’ll need to pay their salaries if we wish to keep them, which comes out to a total of 4 gold pieces per week. There’s some perspective for me - My breastplate alone is worth nearly 2 years of their salary. So at least paying them won’t be a problem. Lady Lory'nelis assured us these were excellent sailors, one of her best crews. Of course she would say that, but when we met them later they didn’t give me any reason to doubt her words.

We met back up with Khauldera and the others in the town square and shared the good news. They had had less luck in their mission than us. While Shik had managed to locate a den of kobold’s they weren’t so much interested in the wyvern eggs as they were interested in making and selling drugs. She described a haze in the air that had made it hard to breath. They had however graciously pointed her towards another nearby settlement of their folk that might be willing to pay for such a prize. The location was very nearby, out on a the tip of a rocky outcropping that stretched into the harbor. From the mainland it was very nearly impassable so most everyone who went there went by boat. Seemed as good a time as any to go see our new ship then, since it would almost certainly have some rowboats we could use to make the trip.

We’d received a note with the deed telling us which dock the ship was at, so finding it was no problem. As we passed docks I noticed a ship by the name of Elegant Antonia. Filing that one away… Our ship turned out to be an 80 foot long, 25 foot wide ballenero style vessel. Dwarves are not traditionally sailors, but I do have some academic knowledge of ships from the time I spent at the sun temple in my 50s. We usually had a few sailors in residence and Antonius too was always very interested in boats - I know he even served on one for a while before becoming an enforcer. This sort of ship would always have 2 masts and was well-suited for whaling and general cargo hauling due to the large, easily accessible hold in the center. I could see ours had undergone some additional outfitting as well. Four black iron cannons protruded from the railing on either side of the vessel and the aft hosted two outset platforms each bearing a ballista. That… Is a lot of firepower. Cannons are more common than smaller personal firearms sure, but they’re still pricey and to have 8 on your ship (ostensibly a merchant vessel) you must be really paranoid, really rich, or really good at sticking your nose where people don’t want it. Not that I’m complaining. The way things usually go for us, I’ll take all the offensive capability I can get.

We boarded the ship and were briefly stopped by two guards on the plank before being recognized as the new owners. After making our introduction with the ship captain Imryll Ertiris (wood elf, clearly respected by her crew), we told her we needed to use one of the rowboats and she had it prepared for us. While the sailors were working she briefed us on the preparations they were making for our departure, which included a looooot of gunpowder apparently. Ah. So our reputation must have preceded us then. Along those lines we also inquired about where we could purchase insurance for the vessel. Imril let us know there’s an outfit called Draft, Bliss, & Vorthrod that sells this service. We thanked her and departed for the kobolds. Along the way I adapted an old dwarven mining song, simply changing the words “digging a hole” to “rowing a boat”, which Morgrym and I sung loudly the entire trip, much to Khauldera’s chagrin. If we were forced to make a living by singing in taverns, we’d starve to death.

The kobold settlement was more of a shantytown really. They were making do largely with scraps and salvage and didn’t really have any architects or engineers, so that was to be expected. Shik lit up like a kid in a confection store, and set about locating us a place to buy some food. Normally I’d be hesitant to eat something coming out of a kobold kitchen, but the stall where we found skewered and fried fish seemed pretty clean and the fish looked okay. It even tasted decent and didn’t give anyone serious intestinal distress or vomiting fits. Kahuldera glazed over around this time, mumbling some nonsensical stuff to herself and needing to be led around by the hand. Shik said this was the effect of the drug from the den they’d been in. It was called purple polly pox. I guess it hits some species pretty hard, humans being one of them. Hell of a delay on that high though - Usually inhaled drugs are quick to take effect. Probably some form of magic involved.

We located a monastery (which was a taller building that the rest and did not look structurally sound at all). Inside were monks intoning a prayer to Brazig the Puny, a wyvern we learned that had razed a nearby fishing village some years back. We found that the residents here considered the fishing village to be their holy land and prayed for Brazig to return to them and help them take it back. Someone in our number (don’t recall who) knew of the village in question: Creterescon. It was a place where the people worshiped Mitra the Beneficent Sun, had indeed been razed by wyverns, and had then been rebuilt, this time they with defenses capable of shooting a swooping wyverns out of the sky. I have some sort of moral quandary with providing more wyvern eggs to people with the stated goal of attacking a village of Mitra’s worshippers, or really any village of innocents. Morgrym grabbed the eggs from me and just went through with the deal. I get the feeling he didn’t get hit enough as a kid. Not by adults necessarily, other children would have done fine. Whatever. It will likely be decades before the wyverns are big enough to do any damage. I’ll anonymously let the village know what to expect and maybe get them started off on a fund for additional defenses. I will not share this is the rest of the party.

Heading upstairs in this shoddily constructed temple was a harrowing experience in and of itself. We found what appeared to be a bedroom full of loot across the hallway from what appeared to be a storage closet full of beds. I inquired as to how they got all of this, and they explained it came from shipwrecks in the bay. Not sure I believe that 100%. We made a trade for a heavily enchanted crossbow, some enchanted gloves for doing reconnaissance through solid walls, an immolating shirt for when you just need someone to get their damn hands off of you NOW, a hat of disguise, and a small sack of gold pieces. I’d say we got more value than we would have gotten for the eggs anywhere else, the kobolds are happy, and I’ll take measures to ensure that if they try to attack a village of innocent fishermen they get put into the ground. I’m more or less happy with the way it played out.

We headed back to the Crossroads after that for dinner, over which Morgrym shared with us that he’d made arrangements at a temple in the city to conduct a small ceremony for the alpha werewolf we’d killed in the Masalworth tower. I don’t recall if I recorded it at the time, but he had had the creature skinned and made into a cloak. He hasn’t worn the cloak in some time, given what we later learned, but he has been carrying it around and it’s been eating at him I guess. He invited us to the temple that night, and I readily went since I shared responsibility in that situation, even if I refuse to consider myself guilty given the circumstances that led us to that fight.

The ceremony took place in a small chapel on one side of the main temple, which had been prepared according to the funerary customs of Morgrym’s people. A priest in residence met us there and Morgrym neatly folded the cloak, placing a gold piece on each eye and including an offering of food. I felt like I should give an offering too, and I settled on my last cigar. Kogu played somberly. The priest laid an embroidered cloth on the bundle and Morgrym placed it in the altar with a fragrant oil. The priest lit the fire and said a prayer, then left us be. I performed my own blessing over the remains and stepped back. Morgrym produced the last bottle of wine he’d taken out of Rhoswen’s tower and we passed it quietly around until it was gone before heading back to the Crossroads.


	31. A Grave Problem at the Lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party finally makes it to the upper levels of Hertsbury, then they find out what all the fuss regarding the lake is about. Pants are shat.

_Lamashan 29, 1707 (RW: 7/7/2019 & 7/20/2019):_

Yesterday morning we swung into Oxo Box to get the name of some Mirlizram (Rotavem’s clan) stores on the upper levels that we could patronize. The person working the counter wasn’t the girl we’d met before, but he asked us to deliver a package to Pip’s Parchments on the second level. We headed up via a teleportation sigil that it was explained to us would only work so long as we had appropriate passes on our persons.

The 2nd level of Hertsbury was like a different city. True you could recognize much of the architectural underpinnings, but everything was more elaborate, a little more grandiose, and much cleaner (not that the business sector of level 1 had been dirty by most measures). There wasn’t really a crowd here like down below, but nevertheless I saw that several shops appeared to be doing a brisk business, and the ones that weren’t were places where I’d venture a guess at the average item price being in the 5 digits. Not the sort of places where you have a shop full of customers and a harried cashier checking them out. The shoppers leaned pretty heavily human, and we saw more sleipnir up here hitched to carriages. True to Rotavem’s word, they were well groomed, well adorned, and some even had crowds of children gathered adoringly around. We saw not a one being mistreated.

Buying and selling then. The area where the teleportation sigil dropped us had grass and trees with a walking path around a nice clear pond which was teeming with fish, and through it all unobtrusively placed benches made of wood. I’ve seen this sort of thing before in Etrela, really only in larger cities since the smaller ones typically don’t feel the need to put an idyllic slice of nature in their center. The people can just walk for 30 minutes to the nature all around them. While Khauldera and Shik ran off to a nearby confection shop, our dwarven trio headed to The Dwarven Hammer figuring to sell the very expensive looking crossbow we got from the kobolds yesterday and see what they had by way of equipment. I detoured briefly to a magic supply shop to get some inks and paper for a large scroll I’m planning to make with a variety of useful spells on it. The shop was run by a dwarven couple I’d say six or seven decades my senior. The husband smithed the equipment and dealt with customers while his wife did enchanting work. Sounds like a pretty good way to make your living, to be honest.

Morgrym inquired about an urgrosh while Bardoc perused the stock. The proprietor produced a very well crafted weapon with it’s axe and spear heads both sculpted from a grey stone, which he beamingly informed us was cryptstone. That caught all our attention since we know we’re probably going to be making an incursion into a crypt in the next several days, and there’s a greater than zero percent chance (which for our purposes is a 100% chance, because us) that there will be undead trying to kill us down there. He purchased the weapon. I’m of course not looking for a new weapon since I have Callista, and I do have something in mind for armor but I don’t have nearly enough money for it at the moment. At present I’m just saving my coin and potentially looking at some smaller expenditures on materials for magical accessories. Add to that I’m already pretty good at knocking down undead, and I don’t need a weapon to do it. You might even say it’s a specialty of mine, what with all the sun magic I learned at the seaside temple. I did inquire about some other materials. More weapon blanche, universal solvent (seems like a good thing to have), and some bladeguard. Morgrym and Bardoc thought the bladeguard was a splendid idea and bought themselves some as well.

Since the subject of undead and specifically crypts had sort of been brought up, I figured to ask him what he knew of the crypt at the bottom of the lake. A fair amount as it turned out - well, more than us in any case. Until the lake level dropped as low as it currently was, nobody even knew the crypt was down there. I mean realistically, we can venture a solid guess that SOMEBODY knew it was down there, but it certainly wasn’t common knowledge. Rumors had it that the crypt held the bodies of many of the first soldiers to die fighting Uthalil. I have to say I’m curious how a crypt gets built at the bottom of a lake. I might do some asking around before we leave. The proprietor said if we were looking to investigate the crypt we should inquire with the Adventurer’s League, who would give us passes to get in past their lakeside camp and whatever information they had. We thanked him for the information and the business, and told him we’d probably be seeing him in a few days to sell some loot if all went well with the crypt.

We met Khauldera back in the delightful natury area and she excitedly showed us the confections she’d purchased, meanwhile Shik didn’t say anything on account of the lollipop that stretched his cheeks out as far as his ears. She explained that the confections were enchanted to provide various effects when eaten, such as the ability to breath in water, the ability to spew fire from your mouth, and other fun things. I cast some detection spells on them, investigating them for myself, not because I didn’t trust what she was saying - I was just interested. This however drew the attention of a middle aged human woman who stalked imperiously over to tell us that spellcasting wasn’t allowed in the park and jabbed her finger at the sign we’d failed to see. Fair enough that was my mistake and I admitted as much with a clipped courtesy (She may have been right, but that’s no excuse to treat us like we were taking shits in the pond - we lost El’Rick weeks ago). She huffed something about the quality of people they let up here nowadays, and there were definitely comments that alluded to race in her mumblings. We have a term for that sort of person in my homeland: Carin. There’s a story behind it which I’m not going to relate here. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I was all-in on the plan to have Shik sneak up under her table as she was eating a pastry and relieve her of her gold. 

We didn’t keep the stolen gold of course. After he returned to us and reclaimed his lollipop from Khauldera we made haste to the third level of the city and Kogu used his new hat to disguise himself as a well-to-do human man and donate the contents at the temple, after which he disguised himself as a different well-to-do human man and rejoined us. We threw the bag down a shitter and went about our day as if it had never happened. The third floor was nicer than the second, and there was a noted and near total lack of anyone nonhuman. After searching and asking about for several hours we found a name of someone we could sell the demon wings we were still carting around to. Khauldera, Shik, and myself went to find the person while everyone else went back down to complete their delivery errand and make a few more sales. We finally found her, realized she was an illicit drug dealer, and went to meet the others without making a deal. Fortunately there were plenty of places wiling to buy the wings on the second level. I have no idea why we didn’t try to sell them there in the first place. Carin sort of set us off track I guess.

It was evening by this point but we knew the Adventurers guild kept longer hours than the rest of the town. We walked to their headquarters and there met a couple familiar faces - Alric and Shaeni! With them they had a motley assortment of folks that looked like, well, a circus. We spent a short time catching up. He had decided on the name Cirque Volant, and as we could see he was making progress towards getting it off the ground, though he was still looking for a patron and startup costs, this being one of the reasons he was at the guild.

We inquired about the crypt at the desk, and the attendant got excited. I guess there hadn’t been too many people interested in that one, especially after the first group never returned, only managing to magically send a single word message back: “Dragon”. What the hell kind of dragon lives underwater? A black dragon as Alric informed us. Unfortunately the fact they could breath water was pretty much the only thing he knew about them. Just a bit of trivia he picked up in a bar once. Still it was enough to start with. Morgrym convinced Alric to help us take it on, pointing out that a dragon’s horde would make a fine starter fund for his circus. Bardoc and I headed to the library, mercifully open at all hours, and stayed up until 3 in the morning researching. What we found out was less than thrilling. 

Evidently Black Dragons are immune to any type of acidic attack, which wouldn’t be so bad if the reason for that wasn’t because they spew acid out of their mouths at their opponents, which it is. Guess that bladeguard is going to be coming in handy sooner than we thought. They’re completely immune to being paralyzed, immune to magical or chemical sleep effects, and have a high degree of resistance to all forms of magic in general. That news didn’t tickle me. In addition to all of this, they are insatiably cruel beasts, and they like to let their food rot before eating it, which I only mention because it’s probably going to make the thing’s lair smell like a Mazumah family reunion. Mostly unrelated to the research, we may want to prepare for difficult terrain as well. Dropped rocks, obtrusive water, who knows what to expect? Given our late night at the library, we left a note that we weren’t to be awoken before noon the following day. No sense at all charging into danger unnecessarily fatigued.

The next morning after a brief strategy conference we split up to find supplies and then met with Alric at the lakeside as agreed. Khauldera ran up to the confection store to purchase some water breathing taffy for everyone, and I ran to a scroll shop to get a scroll containing a spell that would neutralize a lot of acid across the party. I could have made this item, but it would have taken more time than I wanted to spend. We approached the lake and found a tent city set up by the Nature Guild, who were monitoring the situation and were the ones to have originally posted the notice with the Adventure Guild. They wished us luck and pointed us at the lake, where the dome of a large crypt was poking out of the water’s surface. We asked them about entrances and they informed us the last party had used short ranged teleportation to enter. We don’t have that capability. We drew our boat out of our bag of holding (Alric’s presence reminded us we had it), placed it in the water to expand, and rowed our way across to the dome. Alric did tarot reading on the way for anyone interested, which I wasn’t particularly. At one point I pointedly looked at Morgrym and told him no grave robbing. He took offense that I was signalling him out. I pointed out that he was the only one in the party that had a demonstrated history of the practice. We arrived in short order.

Morgrym used his new gloves to see the other side of the solid stone structure. He reported a damp but not flooded chamber and a a 40 foot drop to the floor below. A brief discussion on how to get in ended with me using the same stone shaping spell I’ve used many times before to open a small passage and create a platform for us to stand on, as well as a stone post to secure a rope to. I keep 50 feet of hempen rope and a grappling hook in my kit at all times, so I secured this to the post and we descended. We had to leave the cat and the wolf outside, since climbing ropes is outside their capabilities.

The immediate area where we landed seemed clear of any danger. The room was maybe 30ft by 20ft with 3 apparent exits and 6 stone pillars that didn’t reach to the ceiling. There was a large stone coffin with a riddle on it along one of the shorter walls: “My life can be measured in hours, I serve by being devoured, thin I am quick, fat I am slow, wind is my foe.” Khauldera solved it - a candle. I don’t carry candles for a variety of obvious reasons. Shik had one though, and when lit and placed near the riddle the coffin opened. Inside we found a body garbed in the vestments of an old Mitran cleric, clutching a candle and a longsword fashioned from mithral. The candle was magical, as was the sword. I took a moment and sussed out the enchantments on both. The candle was a candle of truth, the sword had an enchantment of ghost touch on it. Now why would a cleric be bringing in a sword suitable for killing ghosts unless he had good reason to suspect there were ghosts down here? He could be the cautious type. Sure. I believe that.

We had a discussion about whether it was acceptable to take the sword or if it was some sort of trap. Well, most of us discussed while Morgrym scoffed. We concluded that the riddle demonstrated an intent to pass the sword along to somebody, so it likely wasn’t trapped. This was confirmed when we found a scrap of paper resting under the dead man’s hands that stated his purpose to “guard the lost” and bid us take what we need from him in service of this mission. I thought the candle of truth was odd. Callista said something about interrogations, different times, and how the church was a different organization back then. I guess it makes sense if you’re trying to avert an apocalypse, but I don’t love the notion. Bardoc took up the sword. We left the candle.

The doors were arranged two on one long wall and one on the other. We turned our attention to the single door first, but it lay obstructed by fallen rubble. We had Shik poke his head in and, when he couldn’t identify any threat, do a more thorough examination of the room on the other side. Mundane weapons and a few bits of coin. Nothing we need, and I wasn’t going to condone the taking of items from random graves if it would have no benefit to us at all down here. This wasn’t the place for casual looting. 

The columns had celestial script on them, which only a few of us (myself included) could read. We translated for the others. More riddles, each with a number 1-6. Along the wall opposite the coffin were 6 recessed slots each about 5 inches in diameter. I was wondering if we needed to solve the riddles and sighing in frustration about that, but Morgrym figured maybe there were items that corresponded to the answers elsewhere in the crypt, so we set off. As we were leaving I utilized a little telekinesis to stow our rope atop one of the columns so anything that wandered through didn’t have an easy way out.

The next room was also oblong though slightly smaller than the first. Along the walls were multiple coffins looking like they’d been shredded by some manner of clawed creature and the remains removed. Great. There was a partial collapse of one wall and something that may have been a tunnel. Up a set of stairs into the next area we found more of the same, though the violence done to the graves was worse and the room had suffered a partial cave-in. It was at then I heard a horrific scream like I’d never encountered before and I was utterly overwhelmed with terror. I turned and ran. It wasn’t really a choice. I wasn’t even aware I was being compelled, I couldn’t string together enough coherent thought to realize that this didn’t make sense. The only thing I could do was put one foot in front of the other as fast as possible. I was aware of other people in front of me doing the same, but they really only registered as potential obstacles I may have to bull out of the way.

As I passed through the door to the room we’d dropped into initially, I felt a different compulsion come over me and the fear melted away. This one I recognized, but I wasn’t nearly so offended as the last time Callista had tried to mind control me. She halted my feet and slowed my heart in a matter of a few seconds. As my mind came back together I saw nearly everyone cowering in corners around the room, but no Bardoc. I turned and stepped back into the oblong chamber where I found him swinging his new sword effectually but ultimately inadequately against 3 ghosts. Power surged through me and I conjured a nimbus of holy light around myself, illuminating the dank old crypt as if the sun itself shone from me. I began sending out pulses of life energy much in the same way I do to heal my allies, only this time I wasn’t targeting them. That got the ghosts’ attention and probably a good thing too since Bardoc was flagging. I unleashed heavenly fire from Callista and kept channeling until they all dissipated to nothing. 

The rest of the party recovered, though we all took a minute to asked Kogu and Alric, being our only prestidigitators, to clean our soiled drawers. This seems like the sort of thing one would be sheepish about, but in fact dignity is a relative thing and when 6 out of 7 people have just shat themselves in terror, there’s not really enough humiliation to go around. After a few minutes we crept back into the room, now devoid of vengeful spirits at least for the time being - ghosts have a nasty tendency to return a few days after being “slain” unless whatever caused them to form in the first place is rectified. In this case I explained it was likely the brutal desecration of their remains. If one good thing came out of that situation its that I think Morgrym finally got the point about graverobbing. 

We found a round stone in that room with an image of a sword carved into it. Reviewing the riddles from the columns we found one that “sword” fit as an answer to, so Morgrym was right about how the puzzle worked. I laid out a spell to hide us from further undead as we explored the rest of the crypt, but we didn’t encounter anything else of great consequence. Several ghouls that we obliterated in a surprise attack and at least one sahuagin, which appeared to be what were using the tunnels and probably desecrating the graves too. We had Shik make up a trap for one of the tunnels after he scouted it and reported that he could hear more of them elsewhere. Bardoc traded blind arrows down one darkened tunnel with one, and when it died I animated a piece of rope to wrap around the corpse’s neck and drag it out to us. Morgrym salvaged scales from the tail for later sale. Upon locating one of the stones I accidentally pulled half a column down on top of myself. Oops.

Once we’d collected six stones we returned to the initial chamber, matched them up to the riddles they solved, and placed them into the slots from numbers one to six. Upon doing this a segment of wall unfolded to reveal a new passageway leading downward. Neat. We figured we would head back to the dome and rest up to come at it fresh in the morning, since we had a general idea what was down there and there was no reason we should really need to rush. Watching Bardoc try to ascend a rope in full plate armor provided some much appreciated levity. We removed the rope from the peg and rowed back to shore.

Upon arrival we found the person in charge and provided an update, then asked if they could give us a place to stay for the night. We were told to simply take any unoccupied tent.. After locating a suitable accommodation and laying our claim we went to find some dinner and a stiff drink. I enjoyed a single glass of a dwarven bourbon while chatting with a young woman who I’d seen reading a book on drakeology. She was eager to provide me with some further information on black dragons, though the only facts from her book that I hadn’t already found elsewhere were that they can summon plague carrying animal (rats usually) and that they could commune with other scaled beings. That second one I was already suspecting on account of our Sahuagin encounter. She requested that if we kill the dragon we let her get ahold of some samples for her work. I see no issue with that.

I broke off and headed to camp much ahead of the others, where I tossed down my campfire bead and rolled a moderately sized stone to the fireside so it could serve as a seat. I spent most of the next 6 hours with various sheets of paper and a quill, writing lists and diagrams, scratching out notes, and asking my associates if they still had this or that potion, or knew how to cast some spell or another. At the end of the night I had what I felt was a pretty good strategy worked out. There were some things we would need to buy (we were only about an hour’s brisk walk away from the primary market district), but I had positioning and tactics worked out, roles in the fight, what bolstering spells to were going to apply before going in, and at least one novel tactic. 

The general plan is to give us every advantage we can have and hit it hard, fast, and dirty. We will try to open the fight with Kogu, under the effects of both a Fly and Invisibility potion, dumping out a large sack of alchemists fire on the foe’s back. With any luck that will destroy the wings, or at the very least cause grievous bodily harm to the creature. I will hit it with whatever crippling and harmful effects I have (getting through it’s magical resistance is another matter which I have a separate plan for) after shaping the stone around the cavern entrance into rudimentary fortifications. While Bardoc and Khauldera move forward to engage it directly in the manner to which they are accustomed, Morgrym and Shik will stay relatively near the entrance and use their bows (we have to buy Shik a bow, though he assured me he’s quite capable with one) to take out any support before focusing their arrows on the dragon as well. Kogu will do his bard thing, aiding us with additional magic wherever possible. Alric will focus mostly on using his powers to weaken the dragon, and I will continue to provide healing and offensive spells as appropriate. In addition to this, everyone not directly engaged with the primary foe will be responsible for keeping the retreat open in case things go poorly.

On the subject of the dragon’s spell resistance: Callista spoke up while I was scratching out my plans and muttering to myself trying to figure out what magic I could use. She asked why I didn’t simply use a particular divination spell that had been commonly employed in her day to assay and subsequently penetrate spell resistance. As she described it to me, I had to confess I’d never heard of it. She was surprised, but not exasperated at least. I guess she’s finally grasped the idea that a lot can change in hundreds of years. This particular spell was simple to learn and used to be taught to all casters of sufficient power. It took me very little time to get down, though of course the real test will be tomorrow in the field (or the cave, as it were). I should talk with her further and see if I can rediscover any other spells that have been lost to time.

All of this laid out, I now head to sleep, once again with the wonder in the back of my mind if it’s the last journal entry I’ll ever write. Outside of Navenna, this will be the most dangerous foe we’ve yet faced. I have confidence that I’ve made a good plan though. Hopefully it doesn’t all fall apart immediately.


	32. Into the Dragon's Lair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party delves into the black dragon's lair.

_Lamashan 31, 1707 (RW: 7/20/2019 & 7/21/2019):_

It all fell apart immediately.

That isn’t to say the fight went poorly. In fact we fought exceedingly well once we got our bearings and slew the actual dragon while scarcely taking a single blow. I suspect this will make a new verse to Alric’s song about us. I’ll start from the beginning.

In the morning I briefed everyone on the plan. They generally agreed but suggested we send Shik to be our deliverer of death from above, seeing as he’s more adept than Kogu at moving silently (though I’m unclear as to how much this actually matters when flying with magic). Khauldera had a chat with him to make sure he wouldn’t have objection to killing the dragon since… kobolds and dragons. He was hesitant, but she won him over. We sent a detachment into the city to purchase the supplies we would need. I stayed behind in our tent, burned incense, and meditated for an hour to fortify my mind against external influences.

Back down in the crypt we checked the traps Shik had laid, finding one to contain a dead Sahuagin and the other merely some torn flesh and a lot of blood. Morgrym stripped any scales worth stripping from the corpse. The corridor we had seen open up before us the day prior proved to be pitch black. As ill fate would have it, the only two people we had who were any good at spotting traps were the two who couldn’t see in the dark. Weighing our options, we went with Khauldera in front, Shik riding on her shoulders, and a torch held in her offhand. Around a corner as the path started to rapidly descend, we could see two more sahuagin perhaps 40-50 feet up ahead with their backs turned. We attempted to lure them around the corner with noise, but they simply shrieked and bolted out of the passage. Goodbye element of surprise.

We advanced after them and heard/felt a loud thud behind us, followed by the sound of stone on stone. A quick glance back revealed a very large boulder rapidly picking up speed as it rolled down the sloped passageway towards us. Some reacted quicker than others but everyone got smacked around some. Nothing life-threatening. As we were picking ourselves back up, the boulder reached the bottom of the passage and simply disappeared. I puzzled over that for a split second, then we heard the rolling sound again behind us. Nothing to do but run. We reached the bottom of the passage before the rock caught up with us a second time, and I noted a rune inscribed on the ground as we sprinted past the location it had previously vanished. Then the ground beneath my feet ceased to exist and I tumbled into a pit with my companions. Bouncing off the walls probably arrested our momentum somewhat, but there were still broken limbs, bruised ribs, and probably a few concussed heads. The Sahuagin looked over the edge and laughed at us before walking away, clearly not considering us a threat any longer.

As I slowly stood back up I saw Morgrym shaking as he lost the fight to restrain his lycanthropy. I watched with indignation as we grew several feet, sprouted long claws and a snout, and turned to me with murder in his eyes. Just as I was gripping Callista and preparing to knock a little serenity back into my traveling companion, Khauldera interposed herself and touched his chest. She said something in a language that I assume was Druidic, and I felt a subtle thrum of power in the air. I don’t know exactly what she did, but it worked. The bloodlust drained from his eyes, though he made no visible attempt to change back. Now in full control of himself, he looked up to the top of the pit some 40 feet above us and then back down with a hungry smile stretching across his canine features. At his request I grabbed some more rope from my pack and draped it over his shoulders while Bardoc set to work with the healing wand that had been on my supply list from this morning. 

Less a minute later, wolf-Morgrym was bounding up the side of the pit with about as much effort as I expend to climb a ladder. He disappeared over the edge, and a few seconds after he was out of sight two scaled forms tumbled over it and began a rapid descent towards us. We stepped out of the way and let the sahuagin hit the ground at full speed. Ten to one odds the fall killed them outright, but I opened one’s throat with my dagger just to be safe and Khauldera sunk her sword into the other’s chest. As we did this we heard a very brief inhuman shriek of terror followed by a sickening crunch. Moments later the the bulk of the coiled rope was tossed into the pit, rapidly spooling out until the end rested on the corpses of our two would-be captors. We began our ascent. 

As we reassembled at the top of the pit, wounds now healed, figured to maybe pull our shattered plan back together. That line of thought was cut short when our attention was drawn to the center of the cavern where the water stirred and parted as the winged and scaled form of the the black dragon rose out of it. I guess it must have been sleeping when we showed up. Small blessings. Rapidly deciding which aspects of my pre-battle plan had been the most vital, I whipped the scroll out of my haversack and laid the acid resistance upon us. Kogu cast his hastening spell as we spread out so as not to provide too easy a target for any breath attacks. Somebody grabbed the nearly headless corpse of the third sahuagin and tossed it down the pit so we wouldn’t trip over it. Shik crouched behind a rock and gulped down his pair of potions, vanishing from sight. The dragon took flight, for all of the 40 feet it could ascend in this cavern - it still took it out of range of our two hardest hitters. Rather than immediately attacking us, I recognized it casting its own magic on itself. This all made for a weird sort of peace as most everyone in the room was taking a few moments to prepare before trying to kill each other. 

Morgrym acted as the exception to the above-stated peace. As we were girding ourselves for battle, he shot off on all fours towards a corner of the cavern where another Sahuagin had emerged. The fishman stabbed at him with its trident, missed, and was promptly torn in two. Morgrym’s head snapped to another corner of the cavern where two more were taking aim at Alric’s back with their crossbows and launched himself at them in another dead sprint. In the interest of providing an accurate representation of this sight, I feel I should make note that apart from the outside edges of the cavern and a few isolated stone platforms near the entrance, the entire floor of the arena was covered with at least a foot of water, severely hampering movement for creatures of our size. Morgrym, with stacks of sculpted lupine muscle and the effects of Kogu’s hastening enchantment, didn’t care. He ripped through the water as though it wasn’t even there.

While Morgrym closed on his unseen assailants, Alric moved along one wall of the cavern and shot a spell at the dragon, ripping the air from its lungs. He conjured a scintillating sheet of magical energy that intersected the beast’s head whereupon its eyes changed from a glowing and vibrant green to milky white. It blinked rapidly and tried to roar in anger (which didn’t go well, still lacking breath) before repositioning itself near a wall. The dragon very clearly still had a rough idea where we all were, but also no longer had the acuity for a precise attack. Alric pursued it steadily as 2 crossbow bolts zipped past him from behind, then 2 more. One managed to slice a shallow cut in his arm before both shooters were eviscerated with a howl of pure violent glee. Morgrym swept a single claw though their bellies and tore one’s face off with his teeth before bloodying his muzzle in the other’s abdomen.

Staying closer to the entrance until there was a reason for them to advance inwards, Khauldera and Bardoc drew their bows and started firing off arrows. They broke scales and inflicted flesh wounds for sure, but bows weren’t the ideal tools for this job and we’d known that, which is why the plan was to ground the bastard. Khauldera got a little more effect from her shots by using some fire-tipped arrows, but only a little. I activated the spell Callista had taught me and found myself able to perceive the magical energies around the dragon as they ebbed and flowed in a constant shield. I picked my spot and timed a fireball with as much power as I could put behind it, targeting it to arrive just when and where his resistance would be weakest. The strike worked, and though his reflexes were better than I expected, they weren’t good enough to prevent him taking the full brunt of the blast. It was never going to be lethal, but it was a good strike all the same. This was happening at about the same time Alric cast his blinding spell and forced the beast to move to a corner. Alric and Kogu then closed in, shouting insults at it in draconic and infusing their voices sufficient amounts of their own arcane power to cause actual injury.

As soon as the dragon regained its breath, it boasted that we would never ground it. Really, first thing it did with 7 people trying to kill it was boast. It said its name like I was supposed to give a shit. Then it called for more sahuagin reinforcements and sprayed a prodigious amount of acid at us. Every drop that actually hit was neutralized by the protection spells. I had Callista apply additional resistance to me (one of the abilities she had regained when I had her upgraded in Witry after the goblin cave), and I took note of another Sahuagin which had just emerged from a tunnel underneath it’s master and was standing on the firm rock ledge that outlined the cavern. 

As I threw another fireball, aiming to catch both dragon and sahuagin in the blast, I saw small glass bottles beginning to appear out of thin air and raining down onto the great beast from above, followed shortly by Shik pressed nearly flat against the ceiling. Of the 50 bottles of alchemist’s fire we had purchased, roughly 80% hit their target, the rest falling to the ground just close enough to redden Kogu’s skin but not seriously injure him. Our foe stayed in the air, his wings beating away the explosion of steam resulting from all the sudden fire to reveal the blackened corpse of the sahuagin floating face down in the water. Another blast of acid depleted the last of my protection spell, but then sloughed harmlessly off my body courtesy of Callista’s protective magic. Shik drew his rapiers, dropped down onto the dragon’s back from the ceiling, and slashed at its wings, nearly severing one and then withdrawing while the great black beast tumbled into a heap on the ground. Pride cometh before the fall.

Though clearly injured and in pain it regained its feet, suffering an opportunistic slice from a frustrated Khauldera in the process, and with clear effort sent out a wave of magic that cancelled all our active spell effects. I guess it would be hypocritical to complain about dirty fighting. Kogu stepped back and cast his hastening spell again and I asked Callista to reapply my acid resistance. Two more Sahuagin began advancing on us from the corner where Mogrym had slain the crossbow wielders, and I was getting ready to deal with them when I heard a gurgling shriek behind me and glanced over my shoulder to see him finish ripping open a fat one who’d been wielding a staff until a moment ago. I hollered to him that we had two more coming and he barked in acknowledgement. With that threat accounted for I backed myself into the entrance tunnel by a few feet (as cover) and focussed my mind on the weapons of my allies, particularly the blades of Khauldera and Bardoc. Mitra’s power flowed through my will and manifested a temporary keening enchantment like the one on Shik’s rapiers, just sustained by my concentration rather than being woven into the weapon. I didn’t have to maintain it long at all. Her sword sharpened by divine magic and driven by her prodigious strength, Khauldera soon drove it into the beast’s mouth and through it’s brain, ending the conflict.

The sahuagin I’d noted a few seconds ago fled swiftly before Morgrym could further color the water with their blood. He walked over to rejoin us, shifting back from a heap of fur and fury into the just slightly doughy dwarf he is. The look on his face was almost sexual in nature, and I have to admit that thinking back on the sheer unadulterated primal fury with which he had dispatched those poor bastards nearly made me light up my pipe. 

I suggested we remove the head to have it taxidermied as a trophy. Everyone was in agreement and Morgrym took lead on removing it. He got in a spat with Khauldera over who would get to carry it back to the surface, an argument which she won because, well was he going to fight her over it? On the subject of corpse mutilation, I went around the room and cut the skulls and femurs out of all the sahuagin that had died, washed them off in the water, and stowed them in my haversack. I had used my last orc femur for this fight, and I do like that spell ever so much. Morgrym stripped off all the usable scales, which ended up being quite a haul. We recovered the bodies of the previous adventuring party from the pit we’d fallen in, as well as more bones that looked pretty fresh from around the crypt. Then we pitched the remainders of the fishman corpses back into that same pit. 

I looked around and attempted to locate any bones that looked older, perhaps old enough to be from the destroyed coffins where the ghosts had been. I found most of 3 human skeletons and enlisted Bardoc’s help to carry them back to their original resting place. I have a decent understanding of anatomy, and we did our best to reconstruct each fallen warrior’s skeleton in a crypt. We performed blessings for the dead and magically restored the coffins to their original state. Hopefully this will put the spirits at peace. It was all we could do. On the way back down to the cavern, Bardoc returned his ghost touch sword to where he had found it, hoping it should never be needed again.

Returning to the battleground we found that our companions hadn’t yet located the dragon’s horde, but they’d found an opening into another cavern below. While they were rigging up a rope to lower someone down, I inspected the rune carving with Kogu. The two of us determined that it could be configured to create a dimension door (short range teleportation) effect out to a range of about 400 feet. Useful. That would be how they were teleporting the boulder up to the top of the passage. We extracted the rune without damaging it. The command phrase was simply “Warp this Object” in Aquan. We sent Khauldera and her enchanted torch down the hole since she’s the strongest climber and swimmer. We gave her the ruin and Kogu cast a language spell on her to allow her to speak the command word perfectly. She located a large pile of treasure right alongside another pool of water, set up the rune to teleport to the cavern above, and started tossing treasure onto it. At the exit, Morgrym grabbed and shovelled it into the bag of holding, though we intercepted his hands before he could throw the portable hole she’d found in and kill us all.

When she ran out of treasure, she popped up through the portal and informed us that water had begun seeping up from underneath the pile as she went and was now spraying out quite rapidly. Guess that explains why the lake level was low, but we did promise the nature guild a dragon corpse. I climbed down the rope and used the stone shaping spell I had been intending to use on fortifications to cap off the flow of water for the time being. We lashed the dragon’s head to Khauldera’s back with more rope (it was about as big as she was) and headed to the surface. 

Outside it was cold and drizzling. We rowed back to shore the triumphant heroes, albeit with the mood dampened moderately by the bodies of our predecessors riding with us. The whole camp sort of stopped when we stepped ashore, then exploded in a flurry of excitement. I briefed the local leader on what they would find, what bits we still wanted from the dragon (hide and underbelly - the rest was theirs to keep), and the situation with the underground spring, noting that it would fill quickly once they unblocked it, so to finish their business and have their exit planned before-hand. She thanked me and said they should have the materials ready for us in 2 days. With that we headed back to town.

We were struck by the size of the queue going into the city as we approached. Wagon after wagon, almost all piled high. Produce, wooden barrels, tanned hides, all manner of items. It didn’t take us long to find out this was for the annual harvest festival tomorrow. We recognized the bartender from Portshead and went over to greet her. She introduced us to the farmer who we’d helped by slaying the salt drakes and he gifted us a small barrel of the pumpkin ale we’d made possible, which was graciously accepted. 

It made sense to get the head to a taxidermist as soon as possible, but Khauldera wanted to go show it off to Zselbor first, so to the Crossroads we went. He barked out a laugh when we saw it and made a crack about it resembling his mother-in-law. Khauldera got an idea about the horns and asked Zselbor if he would be so kind as to sever them about 2 feet from the tip, which he obliged her in. She held it in front of her and asked us how we liked it as a drinking horn. I actually like it quite a lot, but someone else laid claim to the other horn before I could.

A little investigating later, we were heading back towards the outer city to a more industrial somewhat unpleasantly scented area. There aren’t a lot of taxidermists who are qualified to handle something like a dragon. I don’t imagine there’s all too much of a demand for it, especially the last few centuries. We found the location and went in to meet a stout, potbellied human man by the name of Mindefirin. His eyes lit right up when he saw the trophy and his demeanor showed a hint of a child who sees their parents with sweets and can’t wait to get his hands on one. Just a hint though, under his professional demeanor. He had much of his work hung on the walls to his shop, and it made for an impressive display. Bardoc negotiated a price for the job, 1,800 all said. Half to be paid now, half on completion. It was surely higher than it would have been if we hadn’t needed him to cast and then gold plate new horn tips, but I can’t begrudge my companions their trophies. We were paying extra to get the job done quickly, and it should be completed before we leave the city.

Back at the Crossroads we parted ways with Alric for the night and sent him off with 6,000 gold pieces as sponsorship for his circus. He certainly did his part in the fight. We gave him our consent to use our name as a sponsor too. He’s been calling us “The Fire, Strength, and Steel” in his songs. I don’t have to wonder about what part of that I make up. As everyone else went up to the room, he pulled me aside briefly and gifted me two additional items he’d…. Liberated …. From his parent’s vault when they threw him out for being a tiefling. The first was a lesser strand of prayer beads, an item that would allow the bearer to cast a blessing and a healing spell on command once per day. These are both things that are well within my personal capabilities so I’ll put it up for discussion to my companions who they think should carry it. The blessing bead will only work for myself or Bardoc, but the healing one should be usable by Morgrym or Khauldera as well. The second item was a small pearl, unremarkable in appearance but with a magical aura that rivalled Callista’s. This, he told me, was a pearl of power. It would gather enough energy from the world around it that once per day I could use it to replenish my power enough to regain use of a spell I’d already cast. It was a reasonably powerful variant too, able to provide enough energy for even my (presently) most powerful spells. He could have sold it and funded his circus, but he knew we’d get good use out of it. These will be boons on our journey. I thanked him graciously. We will likely see him at the harvest festival if we go

Up in the room we went though our hoard. Twelve thousand gold pieces (the majority of which were already spoken for between Alric’s share and the taxidermist), a variety of magical gear, tens of thousands gold pieces more in magical weapons, potions, scrolls, sahuagin scales, etc. We determined what to keep, who to give it to, and what to sell as per usual. The most notable acquisitions were a new sword for Khauldera with a throwing enchantment on it, a wand of phantom steed, a staff of spell storing (from the fat sahuagin), and a better version of the headband Bardoc had purchased not more than a few days ago. There were some gems of significant value too, and I casually selected one worth several hundred gold pieces to give to Shik, then got bitched at for trying to cheat him out of his fair share because they didn’t feel that was enough. Feeling pretty irritated at that (as much the attitude as the sentiment), I rolled a few dice that I happen to have and abided by their results instead, turning over roughly ⅔ of the gems to him, also to the chagrin of everyone else in the room. I then proceeded to chew THEM out to my satisfaction about how they’ve been on my ass for weeks that I’m too stingy with him, but also apparently take issue when I decide to be generous (this in spite of the fact that I could have given him ALL of the gemstones and it still wouldn’t come to an equal share of the money we’ve made selling loot since he joined us). They’re more than welcome to handle the management and distribution of money themselves, but then the only one amongst them that I’m reasonably certain knows basic arithmetic is Bardoc. So I’m still pretty irritated with that situation.

While everyone took turns bathing I added another spell to my utility scroll. At Morgrym’s request I made a necklace from a selection of the nicer sahuagin scales. It was purely average work, not my best by any means. I wasn’t trying to do a poor job or anything, that’s just the way it turned out. Oh well, at least it didn’t cost him anything. I’m guessing it’s for Brii. He seems quite taken with her. Once all of the above was concluded Bardoc and I made a few stops around the market to offload everything we weren’t keeping. I went to the same church outpost I’d sold the robe of bones at and offloaded a pair of scarabs we’d found in the aeshma’s dwelling (scarabs are a symbol associated with necromancy around these parts). Our last stop was at a shop called Merlin’s run by an eccentric little gnome who seemed an affable fellow, albeit not terribly burdened by a particularly strong sense of ethics. Not amoral or wicked, just... I got the impression he’s the sort that gets so excited about discovering or creating something new that he doesn’t stop to consider what it could be used for. I guess he was THE source for high value spell components in the city though, and we needed a very nice diamond that I could disintegrate in service of bringing someone back from the dead if such a thing were to become necessary.

When we returned to the Crossroads, we found everyone else drinking and making merry. Morgrym had evidently requested something interesting and been served a drink made with extraplanar hallucinogenics. He described a 2 week journey he took from the coast of Elflien to a temple bearing the same mark that had been burned onto our hands. Back in reality (well, our reality anyways) about 5 seconds elapsed. It wouldn’t be entirely without precedent for much of what he saw of the land to be reality. I call it a stroke of luck if it turns out to be true.

Khauldera relayed to us that Cosmo of Cosmo’s Confections had informed her of a basilisk terrorizing the farmlands outside of town. She was interested in the blood of the creature for a new candy she had in mind. Khauldera, knowing we had a few days left in town and knowing we’d killed a basilisk before, told Cosmo that she’d run it by us. Sounded good. Probably make a nice sum of money, help out the locals while we’re at it. If we’re going up against something like that though, I definitely want to at least make a low power version of my cloak of resistance first, so we agreed on the day after tomorrow. I’m going to attempt to contact Brii and Takden tomorrow morning, as I’m sure Morgrym is worrying about the former and last we heard the latter was still missing.


	33. Errands Around Hertsbury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erend and company run a few errands and get some miscellaneous tasks done around Hertsbury before heading out once again. Erend reflects on the government structure of his homeland.

_Neth 1, 1707 (RW: 8/03/2019):_

I completed the sendings this morning as planned and successfully made contact with both individuals. 

Brii has made it to Witry and found some small caches of valuables Morgrym directed her to. She reported that she’d yet to hear from Takden, but that Tharja was now leading the pack we’d first murdered half of and then saved the remainder of. The werewolves are using the ruins of Masalworth as a base to harry the invaders. Takden reported that she’d fled to the shadow plane after the evacuation. She relayed that most of the townsfolk had been saved, and she identified the invaders as Kytons - beings born of wickedness from the minds of mortals, banished to hell long ago. They escaped and took up residence in the shadow plane. They possess unrelenting appetites for pain and suffering, and they routinely cut away parts of themselves to replace them with newer, stronger pieces of their victims. That last bit sounds familiar, though they don’t have any association that we know of with the derro.

We made a collaborative effort out of turning the 6 tridents we recovered from the sahuagin in the dragon’s layer into something of an art piece. I twisted them together with my metal warping spell and helped Kogu melt some glitterdust onto the resulting product. It ended up looking… interesting. Not without aesthetic appeal, but not really like any art piece I’d ever seen. We tried to sell it on the top level of the city while Morgrym handled some personal business. Kogu and Khauldera made a show of arguing over its merit, but we’d not spoken to more than a few prospective customers before the guards came to inform us that selling on this level required a permit. In a bizarre twist of fate, Bardoc managed to sell it to them as a fancy hat rack for their barracks. We made 450 gold pieces, which was a far sight more than we would have gotten selling the tridents it was made from. Not bad for an hour’s efforts.

Splitting up after this, Bardoc and I headed to the garrison where I’d trained in magical crafting a week or so ago. I had been saving the majority of my coin to purchase a specific set of armor before leaving town, but I’ve had to accept that I definitely won’t be able to afford it before we depart. While the plan is to come back through Hertsbury and board our ship to Elflien, there’s no guarantee that will actually happen. Thus I should avail myself of the resources (such as talent) that a large city like this offers while I’m here. I spoke to Odrami again, this time regarding an upgrade to Callista’s magical properties like what I had done in Witry. He wanted 10,000 gold pieces, but somehow and not entirely on purpose we talked him down to 9,500 by positioning ourselves as allies in the working class’s struggle against their exploitation at the hands of the wealthy and powerful. 

That seems comically hypocritical at first glance, but it’s not soooo much if one understands where I come from. In the Bayraines the monarch does hold the most power of any one individual, but the majority of his decisions (almost everything outside of strictly military matters) are subject to debate and overrule by a council made up primarily of elected labor guild leaders along with a few specialized positions such as the chief ambassador (though “chief” has been a somewhat ceremonial title, since our isolationism the past several centuries has negated the need for more than a single ambassador and their apprentice to represent us in the Etrelan Grand Council). The elected positions are not volunteered for, rather they are laid upon those whose peers find them to be the most worthy. This is usually accepted with solemn grace, even by those who would really rather not. If the chosen refuses, the duty of their position is laid upon the king (or as it happens, often one of his appointed staff) until the next scheduled election. It’s taken as the sacred duty of this council to ensure the needs of all citizens are met. Historically, they have upheld this role.

So all of this being what I grew up with, the state of the world outside was a bit of a culture shock to me. True, Etrela isn’t terrible for the common folk as compared to some other countries. The presence of the Mitra’s church is strong, and I’ve never seen people starving or freezing anywhere within a day’s ride of a temple. For the majority of people, wild animals (or worse) and illness are far greater threats than hunger or exposure. Anyone can be dispatched to a village with a wagon of food or firewood, but trained medical personnel or magical healers are harder to come by. This is why I chose to spend years journeying from town to town. I’ve been able to help a lot of people. 

I digress. On the subject of workers’ wellbeing, I’ve found that most wealthy individuals simply don’t care. At some point, they begin to see the poor as pawns to be used up and replaced, and their chief concern in the world is their own wealth and the preservation/expansion thereof. The attitude is less pronounced is those that have known poverty in their lives, and with occasional exceptions it grows moreso with each subsequent generation until you have young adults who’ve never washed a bowl or chopped a log in their wretched lives lamenting the laziness of the very people whose backs they recline upon. This is a somewhat ambiguous subject in the church’s teachings, but they usually get away with it. I suspect that’s because they at the very least make a show of piety, which means a lot of gold flowing into the church’s coffers. I don’t say that to accuse the organization of corruption. Maintaining temples, supplying healers, fighting evil, and feeding the poor all take gold. At worst I think it’s just a cold rational cost/benefit calculation they made. Still, I’ve helped set up a few laborer’s unions in my time on the road, though it didn’t earn me many friends in the upper echelons of society. Mostly this new order was grudgingly accepted. A few times I got to... light the flame of revolution, shall we say, a bit more literally.

All that to say that I do support Odrami’s cause even if I can’t presently devote my time to it, so I wasn’t really lying. We made sure someone at the church was told what we’d learned of the threat in Masalworth, and after a sending of their own they told us that warriors had already been dispatched and more were being summoned from nearby countries. This very location was sending a group of soldiers before the week was out. 

I sent my letter (anonymously of course) to the fishing village the kobolds were planning to raze with the wyvern eggs we sold them. In the market district I grabbed a Crafter’s Fortune wand, which felt prudent given how much crafting we plan to be doing in the near future. I grabbed some supplies too. Bardoc sold the spear we’d looted from the demon and distributed nearly 2,000 gold pieces to each of us. Arriving back at the Crossroads in late afternoon, I roped Kogu, who’d been drinking and busking with Khauldera since we parted ways, into helping me with the cloak of resistance I’ve been meaning to make. Just a basic version - I don’t have time for anything else. It came out perfectly, and we even seized on an opportunity to conceal its magical aura. It’s a pretty useless effect considering all the other auras surrounding me, but it was a learning experience.

Morgrym returned recently (just past midnight while I write this) as we were finishing the cloak. He showed off a fancy new double musket. It’s every bit as nice as the one we’d pitched in to buy El’Rick back in Witry, only it has the second barrel and has been imbued with a low level enchantment for accuracy and damage. I learned he spent the morning at a gun shop taking in the basics of maintaining and using a firearm, as well as how to craft ammunition for it. I imagine given what he must have paid for the weapon, the shopkeeper was more than willing to spend the time. I always assumed it was more complicated than you could learn in half a day, but then my only close up example was a deranged rat with an excretory fetish and absolutely no social decorum. He had also finally found and spoken with the refugees from his home, including his mother, and gotten a better understanding of what was going on in the Gallancaster Ridge.

According to one of Morgrym’s old acquaintances, a tower that sounded much like the one in Masalworth had emerged from the ground, and drow with it. The dwarves’ king had named one of the drow his advisor, and was paying a tribute of slaves drawn from his kingdom. That’s shockingly dark. And here I was expecting beasties and ghouls - our standard fare. The acquaintance had an item that could teleport us to an entrance tunnel, thus saving us the overland trip and the need to figure out a way inside. I felt a bit of relief at that. I think we’ve cooled our heels too long in this place already, even if it has turned out very advantageous for us. He learned from his mother that his father had stayed to fight in the resistance, and she insisted we come to dinner before we left town. Thus dinner plans are in place for the eve of our last full day before leaving. We hunt a basilisk tomorrow.


	34. Barbarians are Bad with Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew heads out to fight a basilisk, and Erend feels petty over some of his peers' behavior.

_Neth 3, 1707 (RW: 8/03/2019 & 8/04/2019):_

Headed out first thing in the morning, first to Cosmo’s for the map and then the open road. It was a day’s journey, and we arrived at the farm in question just before nightfall. The farmer ushered us inside with haste, stressing that we really did not want to be caught outside. Here we learned that a basilisk wasn’t our only worry. Something had been attacking livestock, killing them by removing their skeletons. The state of the bodies suggested that the bones had been liquified and sucked out, and the only thing that kills like that is a tenome, a tall pale humanoid with no eye sockets in its skull and eyeballs in the palms of its hands. As if that’s not terrifying enough already, their gaze has a supernatural ability to induce fear. Seems redundant if you ask me. 

The farmer knew all this, having seen the creatures. He told us they were keeping the basilisk as a pet. Furthermore, he described the size of the basilisk and we found it was rather a lot bigger than what we’d been expecting. Supposedly it had been harassing this area for generations. I cannot fathom why somebody hasn’t come and killed it before now. Even notwithstanding the general apathy towards the poor that I was going on about yesterday, creatures like this have valuable alchemical components in their bodies (obviously, this is why we’re here). If nothing else I would have expected the local church to have sent some soldiers at some point. Whatever, I guess. More gold for us.

We discussed the best course of action. I floated an idea about hiding outside and waiting for them to come, then springing an ambush. We ended up following Morgrym as he tracked them back to their cave just shortly after we’d arrived. At one point when the trail was proving difficult to follow he used a spell to speak to a juniper bush, which was a novel experience for me. She (it sounded like a she) got us back on track and then snickered at us when someone thanked her and her people for gin. It wasn’t far from there to the entrance of a cave, where we descended into the earth.

Not far in we heard a rustling up ahead and peeked into a chamber to see 4 tenome scuffling over a small humanoid form. It was the perfect place for a fireball. I could have roasted all of them before they had a chance to react, but I couldn’t tell if the body on the floor was alive or dead. I have a strong desire to avoid being involved in any more innocent death. Instead I cast a spell to bolster our party against fear-inducing effects, and the fight was on. They started off trying to use their gaze to frighten us, which is just what I would have expected them to do and why I used the spell I did when immolation was removed from my list of options. I brushed the effect off with ease and hit one in the chest with a smaller bolt of fire. Morgrym fired off two shots from his fancy new toy, ensuring I wouldn’t be appreciating any birdsong for the next several hours. Shik did not resist the fear effect and ran screaming from the cave. Bardoc tried to blind one magically to no success and Khauldera straight threw her sword through another’s chest. Kogu put on a blindfold and sat a ways back from the rest of us, playing his music very loudly for the benefit of the now hearing-impaired. I called down a holy smite on them like I did with the Aeshma demon, to greater effect this time if still not quite as much as I had hoped. 

After his opening shots, Morgrym took a two hand-eyed stare from one of the foes and crumpled to the ground, paralyzed. Bardoc and Khauldera advanced over him into the cavern. One foe slipped behind them, trying to get an easy meal I guess; it ran into nearly 200 pounds of very loyal cat, dutifully standing guard over his master. It didn’t survive. Khauldera went down to the same effect that had crippled Morgrym, Bardoc killed 2 more, and I hit the last with a blast of force that was technically not designed to kill things but still hurled it across the room and knocked it out cold. Morgrym and Khauldera swiftly recovered, we patched up our wounds, and Khauldera went to retrieve Shik. At some point during the skirmish the body the tenome had been fighting over had moved itself to one wall, and the halfling now introduced himself as Windroot, owner of a nearby fish hatchery. He tried to pay us for rescuing him but it wouldn’t be right. He persisted, so we agreed to come by in the morning for breakfast. With that he left for home.

We pressed further onward, not doubting for an instant that everything in this cave knew we were here now and so being ever wary of ambush. One room proved empty apart from some stagnant water, then onto a fork in the tunnel. Not 20 feet past the fork one of the paths opened into another room so Morgrym, Bardoc, and I crept ahead while everyone else watched our back. Something looked to be moving under the surface of more stagnant water, so Bardoc fired an arrow at it. This triggered 3 more tenome to emerge, one with the arrow sticking out of it. I was ready for them. Not having to worry about innocents this time (I did check) I conjured a roaring curtain of flame and split the room in two, wall to wall and floor to ceiling, trapping them on the side away from us, which also happened to be the side shedding all of the heat. I can maintain that effect indefinitely with a moderate amount of concentration, so I stepped back behind Morgrym, graciously offering him first shot at anything stumbling through.

Nothing ever did emerge and I was eventually forced to abandon my maintenance of the wall to aid in the fight at the other fork, where two more tenome had come in and been dealt with in a scuffle that, the way I hear it, took twice at long as it would have if Khauldera and Bardoc weren’t both fighting with their eyes closed to avoid the enemy’s gaze. Miracle nobody was killed by a friendly blade… The tenome hadn’t been a problem, but the thunderous footsteps of what we (correctly) assumed was the basilisk were not far behind. The beast was the size of a large carriage, biggest I’d ever seen or even heard of. I abandoned my wall in order to strengthen my team with more spells, and as I was laying them out Mogrym caught the creature’s gaze and was turned to stone in an instant. That guy needs to find some way to monetize his bad luck when this is all said and done. I’m sure Bardoc could help him come up with some sort of scheme. We’d left town without buying any stone salve, but I had prepared a spell for this circumstance. Unfortunately it would take about a minute to cast so he would have to spend the fight as a very indignant looking statue.

I tried to blind the creature with magic, which it shrugged off. Bardoc and, at Khauldera’s direction after she stumbled going for the blow, Shik, went with the more traditional method of just stabbing it in the eyes, which was effective if gory. After that it could only flail, though as I mentioned before, it was the size of a carriage so that still presented a substantial threat. Shik at one point pierced it with his rapiers and made like he was turning its insides to meat pie, while everyone else just surrounded it and stabbed it to death in a more slow and steady fashion. We took it down with no further casualties. 

I went back to check on the room where we’d left the three tenome, figuring that I had maintained the flame wall long enough and it would have continued long enough after I stopped pouring energy into it that they should all be dead. That was indeed the case. It looked like they’d dived under the water to shield themselves from the heat, which probably worked until the water started to boil. Their formerly pale flesh shone a bright cherry red as they floated on top of the still steaming pools. The smell was horrid, but I attribute that more to the quality of the water than the things I had cooked in it.

I went back to heal Morgrym and found that Khauldera had already dumped a sizable quantity of the basilisk’s blood over his head, which is the traditional way to cure such a condition if no suitable magic user or remedy is available. That kind of pissed me off, since the amount of blood she used would have (as I put together later after we were paid for the job) gotten us close to 1000 extra gold pieces, and she used it to duplicate something that I could have done for free right there in the cave. Now obviously you have to use expensive supplies sometimes to get the job done - my plan to kill the dragon should serve as a full proof that I understand this - but this was most certainly not one of those times. May as well have thrown coin into the ocean is what I’m saying. And I know money doesn’t really matter to her because she’s probably been able to get by with her strength, her temper, and something to hit people (or food) with her entire life, but unless we plan to start robbing shops for the supplies and gear we need, we’re going to require a lot more money before this is over. I kept my temper to myself, though I knew I wouldn’t be winning any performance awards for looking not pissed off, and I got over it eventually. I didn’t really pay attention to the loot pile they’d gathered. Some gold, some potions, some scrolls. There was a pair of magical bracers that helped with nonmagical healing, something I’m actually pretty practiced at since magic can’t always do what you need it to, especially when you’re just starting out with it. I doubt we’ll need them, but they would sell for so comparatively little that they’re worth keeping around just in case. I slipped them on since I don’t have anything better to wear on my forearms at the moment.

We headed out to the fish hatchery for that breakfast, though we caught some sleep before we ate, which required a bit of quick rearranging by our poor hosts due to the rather significant racial height difference. The man’s wife and dog had been petrified by the basilisk some time ago, and I gladly cured them, at least getting some mileage out of the spell I would have used on Morgrym. 

We headed back to town and arrived just in time for dinner where Morgrym’s mother was staying. She’s a pleasant woman, good cook too. He broke the news that she was going to be a grandmother, though he made it sound like that wasn’t an accident, to which I coughed and called him a lying bastard. I did it partly as an off-the-cuff reaction, and partly because I’m starting to feel petty over the fact that he brings up MY judgement error in the Masalworth tower at every goddamned opportunity. It’s starting to grate on me. For some reason he’s not so quick to remember that he was the one who, for all intents and purposes, sexually assaulted the first person we met there with his axe. This was a person who, now that I think about it, we had been having a tense though not openly hostile conversation with. Even in spite of the framing Navenna did to set us against the werewolves, that situation could have resolved differently. I generally figure we’ve all grown since then, and there’s little point in dredging up past mistakes (though I admit I didn’t strictly adhere to this philosophy regarding the grave robbing a few days ago, but I wasn’t so sure he saw that as a mistake so……). In any case his mother didn’t seem to really notice or care. Her excitement over the baby gave him the idea to try to get her to Witry to stay with Brii, so we’ll be investigating options for that tomorrow.


	35. The Harvest Festival Tournament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone fights in the harvest festival tournament. Khauldera makes poor life choices.

_Neth 4, 1707 (RW: 8/04/2019):_

Bardoc and I headed back to the adventurer’s guild again this morning, then to the Dwarven Hammer where his weapon was being worked on and to the garrison where I had Callista being upgraded. At the adventurer’s guild they had the dragon hide and underbelly skin for us as promised. We dropped off the underbelly at both latter locations to be added onto our weapons (good for keeping a better grip), and we don’t actually have a use for the hide yet so we’ll just tote it around for the time being. We also arranged the passage for Morgrym’s mother with a delegation of troops heading to Witry. Bit of an unusual arrangement, but he agreed to pay whatever they asked to cover their expenses. We took the basilisk to Cosmo’s and made out well on that - extra well in fact due to the size of the thing. 

As we were running around town we had our attention drawn by a large rat. It’s presence alone was somewhat unusual since the inner city of Hertsbury didn’t really have a lot of them; they keep things pretty clean, so there’s not much food for vermin. The city outside is another story, but I digress. The rat was carrying a note from Morgrym about a tourney under the Ruby Palace. So they finally found out what was down those stairs. They were requesting we join them in the team size 5 bracket. Hey sure, sounds fun. And it was an officially sanctioned event so there were healers on hand to keep people from dying and, worst case, keep them from staying dead. The opponents were to be mostly nuisance creatures that had been gathered up from various places around the country. Sounded fun, so we went.

We were the second fight of the first round, matched against an antlion. The fight didn’t last long. It managed to grab me and lift me into the air with its mandibles, but the distraction proved fatal when Khauldera swung her sword through it’s carapace while it struggled to subdue me. I nailed the landing even. Our bout in the second round was against some sort of four-armed gargoyle creature with wings. The wings did provide some challenge along the same lines as the dragon’s, but this was no dragon. It didn’t last ten seconds against us. A few projectiles hit it and then I unleashed the same force spell I’d used on the tenome. The sound of ribs cracking at the impact was audible over the crowd, and it plummeted to the ground not dead but soundly defeated.

The last round saw us squared off against 2 giants, one of a fire type, thus rendering my favorite type of magic ineffective against it. That’s okay. There was something I’d wanted to do in the dragon fight but never got the chance to. I stayed near the rear of the group and summoned a gigantic woolly rhinoceros in behind the fire giant, then watched as it lowered its head, grunted with contempt, and barreled right at the opponent, several tons of angry meat on the warpath. I turned and called a flamestrike down on the other giant, and then adopted a more supporting role as everyone else slugged it out. The flame giant triumphed over the rhino, though it took a fair beating before doing so. Morgrym took a few solid blows and actually managed to avoid wolfing out, though after the last hit I had to go over and drag him out of harms way. We won, obviously. I would honestly say it was a bit below our weight class given what we’ve been killing lately. That’s not a brag, just a frank assessment. The other team that made it through round 3 was a group from Elflien. We had the option to fight them for the full pot or split it equally. All parties agreed to a split.

After the fight I approached the Elflien team the lounge where they were availing themselves of the buffet. I took note that they were avoiding any meat. I struck up a conversation while helping myself to some vegetarian samplings - can’t hurt at making a good first impression. The man who seemed to be their leader introduced himself as Quidon. After some idle chatter about the fights I proposed that since they were going back to Elflien and we were planning to head there ourselves they could ride with us in exchange for some insight into the area. He agreed, reasoning aloud that that lodging for a couple weeks would be cheaper than paying for a ship to take them home. 

Quidon did remark he was surprised to hear me call it Elflien, since most people don’t. Maren counts it as part of their territory and the rest of the world is happy to let them, regardless of what the locals think. I didn’t really know much about this until recently. Geopolitics has never been of great interest to me, and most of the places I’ve been over the last 20 years aren’t up on the latest international news. Based on my limited knowledge I would say I support the side of the elves simply because it’s the land they live on and I believe that barring any clear contraindications, groups of people should be able to govern and associate as they see fit. He wanted to meet the crew of our ship, so we made plans to rendezvous tomorrow shortly before midday at an eatery by the docks.

We headed back to The Crossroads for our penultimate night in town before departing for Gallancaster. All but Bardoc, who went off with his shopkeep lover. Most of our crew is down in the bar making merry. I’m going to head down and join them.

…..  
 _Several Hours Later..._

For the fuck’s sake, Khauldera went and bedded one of the succubi waitresses. Zselbor assured us his employee wouldn’t kill her, but there’s no world in which this is a good idea. I know what type of magic it will take to restore her after this encounter, assuming she comes out of it alive and so I will include the spell in my morning meditation. It’s going to cost a not insubstantial amount of diamond dust to pull off though, and she’s paying me for it. I’m not committing a single copper’s worth of the party’s resources to fix foolishness this flagrant. I would have expected something like this out of Pash.


	36. Wrapping Up Business in Hertsbury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erend runs around Hertsbury finishing various odds and ends before departing for the Gallancaster Ridge.

_Neth 5, 1707 (RW 8/17/2019):_

Khauldera ambled in to the lounge this morning looking utterly sated and also a little hollow. She didn’t put up an argument when I told her the price for me to fix it, and I did it before we got into any other trouble. Morgrym had evidently enjoyed a night of violent pleasure with another bar patron and was also looking somewhat worse for the wear, but also quite satisfied and not harmed in any major way. Everyone had some errands to run after that and there were several hours before we needed to meet the elves at the dock, so we dispersed. 

I stopped in at a magic shop to replenish my stock of diamond dust and grab a few other components I want to have on hand. I’d been curious about the reason there had been a crypt at the bottom of a lake, so in a bid to find out I used a blank book and a spell that scours all the world’s libraries for information on a specific topic. Turns out it wasn’t anything all that exciting. The crypt was not originally under a lake, it was just in a lower part of the city. Geography changed as it sometimes does over time, and that part of the city flooded. I suspect the reason we didn’t see any other buildings in the lake was the high concentration of debris in the water.

Making my way towards the docks with time to spare, I located the insurance agency Draft, Bliss, and Vorthrod that I’d learned about some days ago when we met the ship’s crew for the first time. I dealt with a pair of gnomes (Draft and Bliss) and got quotes written down for life insurance to be paid to the crews’ family in the event of their deaths. Also to the ship’s owners in the event of its destruction. They gave me prices for a year’s term. Five coppers per crewman for a 50 gold piece payout in the even of their untimely death, and somewhere between 50 and 500 gold pieces for the ship, the payout being somewhere in the range of 25,000. They need to inspect the vessel and we need to decide on exact terms before we finalize anything. And of course I have to consult with everyone else.

I met the elves (headed again by Quidon) and the rest of the party at a pub called the Sizzler. The staff was friendly, and we were all eating in short order. Discussion over lunch largely centered around our reasons for going to Elflien, as it seems that few non-elves do. I was trying to be coy since we don’t know if these people are trustworthy or not, but Morgrym blurted out about the symbol and presented his hand. I took a long pull from my wine glass. They told us it was an old religious icon, but that’s all we learned. Hoping I can pick their brains a bit more on the boat ride.

After lunch we headed to the ship. We really need to come up with a name for it. Captain Imril saw us coming and announced us to the crew. Bardoc felt that he caught a brief flash of recognition between her and Quidon, which Quidon later confirmed but said he couldn’t place where he knew her from. After looking over the ship and finding it suitable, they wanted to meet the crew, also found to be suitable. They agreed to our offer of passage for information but begged of us one more favor. The reason they’d come to the city in the first place was to obtain an audience with Seldanna Lory'nelis, the very same elven woman who’d sold us this boat. Bardoc took on the task of arranging it for them. I found out later in the day that he had succeeded, so good on him. We made sure the elves understood that we were going to be gone for some indeterminate amount of time, hopefully not longer than a couple weeks.

That matter being settled for the time being, I set off to find this Antonia character who apparently has a tattoo similar to my little resurrection bonus prize. I found her at her ship, though I learned her name was in fact Birgitte. She was cautious. After a brief exchange she suggested we go someplace out of the hustle and bustle of the harbor. She suggested her ship, but I politely countered with a more neutral location, and thus ended up in the Sizzler for the second time in the day. I related a story of how I’d been killed and resurrected, remaining light on the detail with as little actual lying as I could manage. She had been thrown overboard in a shipwreck, thought she died but wasn’t sure since despite both our recent experiences in the matter, dead people the world over do, by and large in fact, tend to stay dead.

Birgitte wasn’t willing to have a copy made of her map which seemed fair enough, but she was willing to show hers to me in exchange for my reciprocation. To do this she removed her entire leather shirt in the middle of the sizzler. I suppose tight quarters on a ship don’t leave much room for shame. After taking in the map and, (briefly) appreciating the view, I removed my breastplate and undershirt to allow her to inspect mine. We both concluded that the river running through the segments was the same one, and she identified one particular landmark as the Senavista Lock. Still, more fragments were needed. She was bound for Norwicksey to the north, us for the Gallancaster Ridge and then Elflien to the west. We agreed we would share news of any discovered pieces with one another, though she doesn’t possess the capacity to contact me at will, at least not herself. Having met her now I should have no problem performing a sending myself however. Churches seem like a logical place to make inquiries, as far and away the most common occupation to find individuals wielding that sort of power in is a devotee of one god or another, and Mitran worship dominates a large part of this hemisphere. As she walked away from our meeting I had Bardoc look her over once to tell me she didn’t appear to be evil. 

I headed to the garrison after this with Morgrym and Bardoc to retrieve Callista from Odrami. The old dwarf really does beautiful work, makes me proud to be related by even ancient blood. Most of the change was of course invisible to the naked eye, but he had dyed the dragonskin grip a dark red to go with the fire opal already set into her and added a leather cord (also died red) so that even if lose my grip she’ll remain attached to my wrist and thus easy to take back up. I felt a palpable relief as I wrapped my fingers around her haft and felt her presence brush against my thoughts again. I’ve grown accustomed to it, I maybe didn’t realize how much. I’ve come to rely on her power too. I felt under-equipped going into the basilisk cave without her. Odrami asked why he didn’t see us at the underground revolutionary meetings mentioned in the literature he’d given us. We explained we were slaying a basilisk that had been terrorizing farmers. He approved of that.

Last before heading in for the night we did a little asking around and found where they were holding Fahlim. Found out they were actually planning to release her, though with an indelible mark on her skin that would brand her as a dangerous individual. Painless, but irremovable. Or at least irremovable outside of powerful magic. We pleaded her case to the guard in charge of the jail that this really wasn’t necessary, but the decision wasn’t his to make. He told us we could meet with the inquisitor that had authority over her case tomorrow before she was released, and he inked us onto the schedule. Going to talk to Fahlim, we found that in spite of her circumstance, she was looking better than the last time we’d seen her. She’d regained a little zest, and the bleaching seemed to have receded a measure. She wasn’t thrilled with her outcome but knowing the alternative was either long-term imprisonment or at least relocation to Raktham, she was content. She was planning to leave town after spending a short time with her family though, as the mark would raise obstacles to her in the city. I quietly imparted that I would happily meet her somewhere outside Hertsbury and attempt to remove it. I figure there’s a good shot I can manage it. As far as I’m concerned her “crime” was the morally correct action. As a matter of pragmatism of course it would have been better to report her husband to the guard, but then he may have gotten away with his actions. She made the decision she felt she needed to.

When we got back to The Crossroads that night I found Khauldera already necking with the same succubus from the night before. Morgrym was negotiating terms with the demon he’d spent the previous night with. I went upstairs in exasperation - Far more at the former than the latter. Negotiating a sex contract (including payment) with a sadistic demon is an order of magnitude less stupid than willingly giving yourself over to one that wants to eat you. I don’t know exactly how old Khauldera is. Maybe she never got the chance to act out as a teenager.

Upstairs I confirmed to Callista that she had in fact seen what she thought she’d seen. I told her furthermore that this was the second time in as many days. She was about as impressed as I was. She brought me up-to-date on the powers she had felt return to her as a result of her upgrade. Looking forward to trying those out - one in particular. We sat talking shit for a while before Bardoc joined us. Bardoc, knowing what we now know about Callista’s parentage, thought to ask her if she knew of any particular sermons her father had given that would apply specifically to the situation with Fahlim. As it happens she did. She advised him to look up a sermon Mitra gave in Oprela and provided a rough date (these things get fuzzy over a long life). I put another spell down on my utility scroll, took out my journal to write this update, and I’m going to bed. Tomorrow is the big day. Bardoc gets his enchanted bulette armor back, and then after our meeting with the inquisitor in the morning about Fahlim, we’re teleporting to the Gallancaster Ridge.


	37. We Choose Violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally arriving in the city of Dhur Kolgrav, the party makes a bloody entrance, then retreats into the shadows.

_Neth 6, 1707 (RW 8/17/2019 & 8/18/2019):_

This morning Khauldera wore the same look of satisfaction she’d had yesterday, but was otherwise substantially more hollow looking. She regained a degree of her hardiness as she ate and drank, but still she wasn’t herself. Her movements weren’t as precise, her reactions not as fast. The average person probably wouldn’t have seen it but I’ve spent the last several months in her company nearly every day. I will admit I took a little epicaricacious glee in telling her I couldn’t use the same spell I had the previous day to restore her. The magic is such that it can’t be cast with any potency on any given living being more than every 7ish days. My enjoyment was blunted by how little she seemed to care about this fact. No fun…

Bardoc had departed earlier that morning for the library to look for the sermon Callista told him about last night. I followed with Morgrym shortly thereafter, helping him to locate it in a very old, very fragile book just in time for our meeting. It took some convincing for the librarian to let us borrow the volume, but she eventually relented while eliciting various promises from us pertaining to its safe return. I have a great deal of respect for librarians. Knowledge is so immensely important, and those that tend to our stores of it deserve our respect. The sermon in question was quite razor focused to this exact situation. In it, Mitra spoke about the need to forgive when we could in order to prevent long-standing animosities and cycles of violence, but also acknowledged that some acts were evil enough to warrant death outright. In this case, the execution of the offending party would be, far from an evil act, one of good. As it happened, the example he used to illustrate this point was... selling your family members to demons. Almost too perfect.

We arrived several minute early to our meeting with the inquisitor, which his assistant seemed to find annoying for no good reason. I let Bardoc do the the talking, interjecting where I felt it was appropriate, but understanding that a paladin’s role in the church is closer to an inquisitor’s than a cleric’s is. That and I’ve never made myself a particular friend of the religious hierarchy in general. I’ve always tended to do as I please, especially since advancement in the church’s authoritative structure isn’t a goal of mine. Not that they would know of me here (assumed identity or otherwise) anyways. We’re a long way from Etrela. The inquisitor had to concede Bardoc’s point when confronted with the literal words of our god, though he was rather grumpier than I feel he should have been be about it. We told Fahlim the good news. She declared that she’s going to stay with her grandchildren. I’m sure Aemeki will be relieved on multiple levels to have her mother back. 

We collected our party members, did our last minute errands, and prepared to travel. I found that Morgrym had been given a key by Zslebor that would turn any door into a door to The Crossroads. The way the magic worked is that you would come in through the front door, and when you left you would always end up back where you came from unless you were holding onto someone who was bound someplace different and who went through before you. I have to admit I was wondering about that. It was at least once in Hertsbury that we’d entered the pub from a relatively empty street only to find someone crowding in the door immediately behind us. Obviously some of the more powerful entities or magic users (Sarondial comes to mind) can teleport in directly, but most of us mortals require something a little easier.

I’m under no delusion of course: The reason Zselbor gave us this key is so we’d keep spending money in his establishment, but it’s an honest enough profession. He did caution Morgrym that we would have to leave the key in the door, so to not use it in hostile territory or leave it unguarded. The chances of something wandering in that could really cause a problem for him and his clientele are slim to none, but he wouldn’t thank us for bringing trouble into his establishment. 

For some reason I can’t figure out we left Shik behind when we travelled. I wasn’t really doing a headcount and I assumed Khauldera would make sure we didn’t leave without him, she having practically adopted him and all. Despite the nickname I’ve earned in the past, I am not in fact anyone’s mother, and I am not responsible for lost objects or pets. I admit, Shik has proven himself very capable within his areas of expertise, and I’ve maybe started to take a bit of a liking to him. Still, you’d think someone would have thought to fetch him, especially the person who dotes on him daily. Guess she was too busy making doe eyes at her succubus. 

We took up positions facing outward from one another with our weapons in hand and Morgrym spoke the command word to transport us all to the Gallancaster Ridge. Where we appeared was a small chapel carved into a cliffside. Several rows of wooden pews faced one direction, while a wall with large open windows facing down the mountain offered a breathtaking view and a crisp mountain wind. The third and fourth walls hosted doors, both boarded up quite thoroughly. One door clearly led out onto the petitioners path we could see going down the mountainside. Morgrym, while (of course) not being familiar with the chapel, was able to place us in the mountains and informed us that this path would lead into Skiojan to the north. The other door led into a tunnel, so that would naturally be our way into the mountain.

Aside from the usual adornments of such a facility, the chapel also contained a mirror with a decidedly different design aesthetic. It gave off a strong abjuration aura when studied with a detection spell, but even with Callista’s help (one of the capabilities she regained in Witry was an identification spell), we couldn’t determine its exact nature. There was writing around the frame. Kogu being only a moderately less talented linguist than myself, we made separate attempts to translate it. We both came up with a close variation of “We watch. We listen. We travel.” Given the strong aura of magic coming off the item it was reasonable to assume that this may mean it was a monitoring and teleportation device. That in turn meant that we probably didn’t have any element of surprise we may have been hoping for, and we might even have company at any moment. Alternatively, we could be pinched by troops from behind as we moved into the tunnel. Morgrym solved the teleportation threat by settings the mirror against one of the large windows and securing it in place with some cord. Anyone who came through would get to [briefly] experience the exhilaration of freefall before unceremoniously transforming into carrion. Realistically though, if they could see through the mirror it’s unlikely they would send anyone. And that’s also fine.

Despite the fact they probably knew we were coming, we didn’t really have much of an choice but to descend into the mountain. The barricade wasn’t hard to clear away. We toyed with the idea of dressing Kogu up as a male drow, even made a pretty good effort at it. Unfortunately since he couldn’t speak their language, the effort was in vain. In the end we just walked, with Khauldera out in front, she being our best trap spotter after the perplexingly absent Shik. We walked for a couple hours before coming to an alcove carved into the side of the tunnel. A rest stop it would seem. There were seats, and a pipe that by the smell of it used to pump ale here. A mug of ale on your way to the chapel? I love it. What I didn’t love was the banner of Mitra the Beneficent Sun, shredded where it hung on the wall. Bastards. The Beneficent Sun may extend mercy to his enemies, but when things progress to the point of slavery and subjugation, The Fire Undying will claim the day. In this matter we will be his agents, and we will enact justice in his name. Violent, flaming justice.

Another several hours of walking and we could see the end of the tunnel with the blue and orange lights of Dhur Kolgrav, capital of the Gallancaster Ridge up ahead. Two shadows, humanoid, didn’t react as we drew nearer. A moment’s hard consideration revealed them to be facing inward, away from us. We debated the best course of action in whispers and Morgrym took the lead, deciding to simply try to bluff our way in. That went every bit as well as we expected it to. Without Shik though, our options for silent takedowns were somewhat limited. None of us are what you might call stealthy, and I hadn’t come prepared with the correct spells to compensate for this gap in our skillset. 

Behind Morgrym and gripping our weapons casually in our hands, we strode right between the two guards who promptly stopped us, speaking a language nobody understood. After a few failed attempts at communication they switched to Dwarven with an utterly atrocious but parsable accent. What happened next was pretty stupid. Apparently all waiting for someone to make the decision but nobody being willing to commit at any given moment to violence, we allowed ourselves to be escorted to a large building, picking up several more guards along the way. This was the former headquarters of the mining guild, I would later learn. We noted pennants adorning the walls, fastened up over the guild flags. They bore the likeness of spiders and wasps in the colors of black and gold. It appeared religious in nature, but I couldn’t identify the god. 

As yet more soldiers joined us, we were finally brought through a corridor into a room roughly 20 by 30 feet wide with a few stout windows, a thick wooden door on one end, and an open doorway on the other. In the room stood a mirror which appeared in all ways identical to the one we’d encountered in the chapel, and the view was the same as through the window we had set it up in. Deeeeefinitely caught. A tall drow male dressed like a religious figure and bearing the wasp sigil we’d seen downstairs on his clothing stood up from his desk as we entered. Hostilities didn’t immediately erupt, but you could have cut the tension with an especially dull spoon. As he spoke to us I kept a mental note of the location of all guards in the room, now 7 in total now and surrounding our group. I’d little doubt we could kill every one of them, but the cleric represented a threat of a different nature. I know what I’m capable of, and I in spite of my rapid recent advancement I’m mid-tier at best on the grand scale of mortal magical capability. No way of knowing how strong he was. I signaled non-verbally to Callista that I wanted her to try to disrupt anything he cast at us. She acknowledged.

The Cleric took note of Bardoc’s armor (which boldly displays Mitra’s sigil) and gave me a lingering glance. He said he had thought they stomped out the Mitran Uprising. Morgrym, after having unsuccessfully tried to play us off as a returning hunting party to the initial two guards, now made the case that we had simply found the teleportation artifact and accidentally activated it. It wasn’t a very good story, given that the item required a command word to activate, and command words are typically not thing you accidentally utter. According to our half-captor the mirrors can read thoughts, so even if nothing we had said gave our intentions away, our thoughts likely betrayed us. 

Surprisingly, he offered to let us turn around and leave. Of course that wasn’t really an option, but rejecting the only offer on the table was sure to lead to violence. When it looked like the conversation had reached its inevitable end, Morgrym shifted into hybrid beast form without warning and mauled the nearest guard. The enemy cleric reacted quickly, cutting his corner off from the rest of the room with a wall of flame, apparently perfectly happy to kill his own guards right alongside us in the heat shedding off of it. Callista tried to disrupt the spell, but trying to dispel magic as its being cast is sloppy at best and not guaranteed to work. The radiating heat wasn’t a problem for me personally, but I didn’t want him to be free to hit us with any other spells and I also didn’t want him escaping through the mirror (also behind the flame wall, and it was reasonable to assume it may connect to more than one destination). I juked out of reach from the guards to my side moved swiftly through the fire. I did get somewhat singed at that but my affinity towards flame protected me from the worst of it. I swung Callista furiously at him one, two, three times. I missed two swings and barely clipped him with the third. I’d used my enchanted undershirt to close the distance more quickly; maybe the speed boost had disoriented me. That’s my story anyways.

The drow cleric retaliated with a touch that very nearly knocked me unconscious. As I spent a few seconds reeling I was dimly aware of the sounds of screams and falling bodies on the other side of the flame wall. A drow soldier’s shape fell partially through the wall behind me followed by a triumphant roar and lay there sizzling for a moment. I heard Pherengus (Kogu’s bird) go absolutely insane. Callista released a bolt of heavenly fire into me, which contrary to its effects on beings of evil, helped me stand up straight at least. While the other cleric was distracted doing something to manipulate the battle outside the wall, I hit myself with the strongest healing spell I could manage and slung my old favorite, the debilitating portent at him. Then I brandished Callista to have her take down the wall and ran my ass out of there. I took an opportunistic swipe to the back from his mace, but that was truly the least of my concerns at the moment.

I ran to the opposite corner, vaulting over the corpses of several drow warriors as I vaguely took note of Kogu lying still on the floor of the hallway we’d come in from. Morgrym was finishing the mauling of the drow he’d apparently kicked through the flamewall, and Khauldera was slashing at some type of shade that had manifested over one of the downed soldiers. Once I had made it behind folks looking more hardy than I, I hollered to kill the cleric but try to stay out of grasping range if at all possible. Bardoc discarded his axe and drew his guisarme, moving to menace the target while Khauldera finished off the shade and it exploded, harming everyone around but none as bad as the already wounded and last remaining drow guard standing near it. At that point all attention was on the cleric, and Bardoc had cut him off from his exit. He threw a few more spells, but we closed in and it ended, as it often does, with Khauldera’s sword buried to the hilt in a fresh corpse.

It was after the close of the battle when Pherengus manic screeching really registered to me and I went over Kogu’s side. Dead. His throat lay open due to what I would later learn was a surprisingly vindictive attack in the chaos of the fight’s opening moments. He’d taken one wound from a poisoned rapier and been knocked unconscious, then a drow came up to him and took the time to line up a mortal strike. He never should have been packed in so tightly in a melee. He was outclassed in every way that mattered here. Bardoc made an effort to console Ferengus as I walked over and swung Callista with both hands into the mirror, shattering it.

There wasn’t really a way to communicate to the bird that we could bring his friend back to life, and had in fact supplied ourselves for just such a task. Even with it being in our realm of capability however this was a sobering occurrence, and I wouldn’t be able to do i until tomorrow as it would require some special preparations. I noted a look in Bardoc’s eyes like he’d just come to a decision while we were surveying the aftermath. We posted a guard in the hall and a lookout on the window. The open doorway led to a a barracks that was bereft of anything useful. The heavy wooden door led to a room with a giant wasp’s nest in it. And I mean GIANT. Based on the size of the entry holes, the things could probably abscond with cats. Morgrym tossed in his last two bottles of kobold swill through a narrowly cracked door and ignited it with a flaming arrow. 

While the wasps burned and we stripped the bodies, he used the key to The Crossroads to send Khauldera and Bardoc through to retrieve Shik. Bardoc took note of two angels present and explained our situation, asking if they might be able to aid us with our fallen friend. Must have made a good case, because he came to retrieve Kogu’s body and the diamond I had purchased for purposes of resurrection. Given the circumstances of his death, the angel freely restored Kogu’s fully vitality after he was resurrected, a favor to those who would champion Mitra’s cause. More than that even, she apparently took a personal liking to him and gifted him a feather, telling him to burn it if ever he needed help. I assume that’s a one-time offer.

Khauldera asked the other angel if she could be restored. Given Khauldera’s role in the fight and generally positive impact on the world, the being did this for only the price of the required materials, but also gave her a lecture on cleansing her soul and repentance, knowing perfectly well WHY she needed the restoration. Bardoc took up a collection from the rest of us and noting that Shik was not yet bound to return to the same room as the rest of us since he’d last entered from Hertsbury, sent him out into the city with very specific instructions for an expensive item that would empower his ability to heal people with his hands. I know he’s been working and training for a while to get this to the point where he can use it to actually bring someone back to life. The bracers Shik (somewhat surprisingly) returned with should provide the final boost needed to get him to that point, though he believe it will burn him out and require a night’s rest to recover. Still, it beats disintegrating a massive diamond in the unfortunately likely event of more fatalities. That all being said, I still want to pick up another one of those at our earliest opportunity.

Once everyone was back through the door and Shik with them, Morgrym check on the wasps. Crispy fried. He tried eating one. Said it tasted like chicken. I requested his whittling skills for making a pike from some materials in the next room. While he did that I mended the mirror physically, though not magically. We stuffed all the bodies into the portable hole after stripping and cataloguing their possessions, and Kogu prestidigitized the whole place to be spotless. I want them to wonder what happened here if they don’t already know. I borrowed an axe and removed the cleric’s head, which I impaled on the pike and rested on my shoulder as we left the tower. We stole everything of use of the way out, most notably the 11 finely crafted rapiers and 6 very well-made crossbows we had taken note of on the way in. Bardoc and Morgrym insisted on dumping the actual weapon racks into the portable hole too. I think they found it funny. I mean the day had been kind of dark so far, so have at it.

Morgrym recalled a time he and his friends had been talking and said that if ever they were to stage a revolution they would use the basement of the Grinding Gear tavern as a headquarters, so that’s where we went. We kept an eye out for drow as I casually carried the piked head over my shoulder (this was meant both to satisfy my vindictive urges towards someone who had nearly killed me and to embolden the populace who were peering out through their windows). We encountered no resistance, and entered the tavern to find a very gloomy and sparse patronage. I slammed the pike into the floor and inquired loudly as to what it would get me. I was hoping for a couple cheers, or maybe a little awe or like, even a smile. The bartender just told me I shouldn’t be waving it around. I was aware of the risk. Obviously. I had allowed myself to do it for the sake of emboldening the people, letting them know it was time to fight back. Sigh. Guess I’m not that sort of revolutionary.

Anyways Morgrym was recognized and we were directed downstairs where we met with his father, name of Baldor Greatforge. It was an emotional reunion, though even so the tensions tensions over why Morgrym left home in the first place were evident. He didn’t care to spend his life at the same tasks as his family and peers. He had wanted more adventure and discovery. His father also looked a little crestfallen when learning about his soon to be part-halfling grandchild. So it’s like that too. I glibly offered the head as a recruiting tool for their resistance movement in an effort to break the tension a bit.

On the subject of the resistance we learned that they were working on tunnels between houses to move about unseen after curfew. It seemed the occupiers mostly left people alone as long as the slave tithes were paid, their rules were followed, and no rabble was roused. That makes things somewhat easier, though I fear we may have upset this stable arrangement by slaughtering their chief of staff for this area and a healthy handful of guards. Several people were certain there had been two guards downstairs that were unaccounted for when we left. I hadn’t noticed, focussing as I was on trying to figure out if I’d seen the wasp sigil before. If they ran away and reported a fight, there would be more soldiers coming soon unless we did something about it.

We took some time to learn about the geography of the place. It was an impressive city, one any dwarf would be proud to live in. We’d had at least a moment to take in some splendor when we entered. The whole place was carved into a mountaintop that had been gradually hollowed out over the years. Six gigantic stone pillars hosted the central hub of the city and each of the five wings. A large bridge connected each wing to the central hub. That was going to make it damn hard to cut off reinforcements to each section, at least without screwing ourselves over as much as them. The hub was where the containment shrine had emerged, and as such was the area with the strongest drow presence. That made moving from wing to wing a problem. There were mines deep below, accessible by elevator from, of course, the central pillar. I am going to lecture these people about redundancy if we get out of this… We were currently located in one of the primarily residential wings. I have at least one idea for how we can get around the city, but I very much doubt anyone will like it.

Baldor and company had a sizable number of citizens willing to rise up, and that number growing all the time, but weapons were another problem. This was something we could help with a little bit at least. We retrieved and counted the weapons we’d taken from the tower: 17 rapiers and 6 crossbows, all extremely well made. We made a gift of these to the resistance along with the couple pieces of armor we’d found, and also of the bodies of our enemies to use as practice dummies, since they didn’t have the requisite straw to make them otherwise. Fortunately it sounds like they have methods of dealing with the smell that 7 corpses are very quickly going to produce. We spent some additional time discussing strategy. I don’t especially want to get into another straight up brawl unless we can’t avoid it. That last one was a close thing. Best way would be to use ambush tactics. Separate the enemies, kill them without offering any fair chance at reprisal, make them fear us if at all possible. I’m of the general opinion that the only unfair fight is the one you lose, and we will not hamstring ourselves with honorable tactics against slavers. Morgrym continued working with the resistance leaders on strategy while I made sure Kogu was feeling well enough and then enlisted his help in identifying some of the artifacts we had looted.

Most numerous after the weapons were vials of the poison the guards had coated their weapons with. Kogu was understandably somewhat twitchy about the stuff, but in looking around us and through the supplies that our merry band had nicked from the guild hall, I had the idea to try to mix up an antitoxin. I think I succeeded, though not the traditional way. There may have been a touch of unintentional alchemy in the process. Nevertheless, I turned each vial into one dose of antidote, which should neutralize any of the toxin already in the body or that enters for a short period afterwards. I gave one out to each party member. The rest of the items were all distinctly drow, and I again found myself thinking back to the body horror of the derro we’d encountered with Rotavem.

Most mundanely, there was some wine and a few necklaces with insignias on them. Morgrym laid claim to at least one bottle of the wine. He likes to collect odd alcohols from his travels. We found an amulet that makes the wearer more nimble and a ring made of bone with a white onyx stone that sends a painful and damaging jolt back to anyone that strikes you in a fight. Both these items went to Khauldera. We examined something we’re calling a spider kit. It comprises a backpack and hand/knee pads coated with a very sticky substance to help one climb. The backpack can deploy spider legs to root you in place if you so desire, freeing up your hands.. The cleric had been wearing a cloak that we determined would make it much easier to move stealthily and harder for anyone who saw you to target you with violence. Seemed like a Shik item. He’s already sneaky, with this he’d damn near be a shade. But the last item... the last item is really what made my skin crawl.

What at first appeared to be a really ugly single-eyed goggle got first more impressive and then distinctly more disturbing the more we studied it. It was designed to strap around the head and go over one eye, made of metal and somewhat jagged around the edges. Kogu and I were able to determine that it should allow the wearer to always see through any illusions, polymorphs, invisibility, etc. In addition to this it allows the bearer to see and process images from all around their head, making them impossible to sneak up on. Furthermore, it confers on the bearer the ability to gaze at someone and damage their mind. Lastly it renders them immune to many forms to mind control. The downside of this is that one you put it on it shoots a spike through your eye and can’t be removed until you’re dead. No way I was touching the fucking thing. Morgrym, having had one bad eye for as long as I’ve know him, saw it as a completely winning proposition (except for the absurd pain of having something shoot a metal spike through his defective, but still sensitive eyeball). He slugged back a pitcher of ale and slapped it on. Once he got up off the floor, stopped shaking, and changed out of his piss-soaked trousers he said it was pretty cool.

I gathered everyone back in the tunnels away from our hosts so we could have a conversation with Callista about the tower. She said it seemed to still be mostly functioning, but it was giving off some harmful runoff. The only way to know for sure what was going on with it would be to get her to the top so she could look around. Hopefully we can avoid destroying this one, seeing as they are, y’know, kind of important. We have to deal with the drow first in any case. The resident dwarves had been able to tell us that there were two factions here (hence the two sigils), but that they both worshipped a god named Uenta. Callista couldn’t remember anything about this other than it sounded familiar. I tried my spell with the book, the same I’d used to find out about the crypt. I found virtually nothing, other than some references that indicate it may have something to do with Atlantia. That tells me I should take another look at the journal I found in Masalworth. Might have something to do with why Navenna had the book. Callista mentioned a demiplane she’d once heard of that allegedly possessed a copy of all books ever written. She said they’d searched and searched for this, but Mitra himself never found it. Maybe that’s what’s in the journal. I’m intrigued enough to try to find out.


	38. Tinder for the Fire God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group continues their guerrilla campaign against the drow and discovers who Navenna is to them.

_Neth 7, 1707 (RW 8/24/2019):_

This morning we awoke to find ourselves alone in the pub basement with the sounds of a morning crowd coming from above. A thought I’d had while drifting off to sleep the night before returned to me and I asked Bardoc if he’d taken the papers from the cleric’s desk when he was looting everything after our fight. He had. I retrieved them and sifted through. Some were a bit singed, no doubt from the flame wall, but they’d been far enough away to not ignite outright. I couldn’t make enough sense of the language to glean any information other than the general format and the signature. They appeared to be short missives, and they were signed by Navenna. Orders? Worth trying to translate for sure.

After our usual preparations we headed out through the tunnels, cautiously poking a head up to investigate the first exit we found. It opened into a dark empty house smelling of warm spices. The place was clearly lived, in, just presently vacant. We reasoned that if a resistance member lived here they wouldn’t mind us slipping out through their front door, since we certainly couldn’t come up through the bar. Once out the front door we made our way back to the pub for some breakfast. 

Morgrym and I went upstairs to where his father was speaking with three other people, two younger even than Morgrym and one older than everyone else at the table. The oldtimer smelled of sweat and stone, and like he hadn’t washed his body in a week or his clothes in a month. Baldor introduced him to us as Old Dogsbreath, a miner just finishing the night’s shift. Dogsbreath vacated his seat to head home when we arrived, and the two younger dwarves were dismissed. We discussed our plans for the upcoming day and asked if they had anyone familiar enough with the drow language to translate the (apparent) orders we’d acquired. Baldor told us of a young woman named Khara who’s been studying it, said she had made some progress at least identifying certain symbols and phrases. I asked him to get the papers to her - after her normal work shift was over for the day, lest she be caught with them - and I would assist her when I could. I’m something of a linguist; I speak 12 languages, though only half of them native to this plane. If she’s made some progress already then maybe that will give me something to work with and we can build upon each other’s knowledge to figure out what it all says.

We asked Baldor if he knew what the drow wanted here. He told us they were looking for a forge under the mountain. It forge was said to be ancient and constructed out of the actual ley line beneath it. I’m… not really sure how that would actually work, but it sounds like it would be powerful as all hell. I asked about an entrance to the underdark that they may be using to reinforce their numbers. He told us he was no miner, and suggested we chase down and speak to Old Dogsbreath. That proved fairly easy, as the man left something of a lingering smell wherever he went and we’d only been conversing for a few minutes since he’d left the bar.

A short walk later we were rapping the door to ODB’s small abode. He let us in with a grumble. It was a rather spartan dwelling - just what an individual needs to survive. We didn’t want to intrude upon him long so we asked our questions plainly. He confirmed to us that they had a passage to the underdark, and gave us a general region though didn’t have a specific location. He said they took the slaves down that direction and they were never seen again. He didn’t know of anyone in the mines that had been tasked with searching for this forge, so the logical assumption was that that’s what the slaves were doing, which meant they likely suspected it to be in the first level of the underdark. No doubt part of the reason they use slave labor down there is is to minimize their own losses to the derro that infest that layer worldwide like vermin. The last useful bit of information he provided is something we’d already seen in action: The leader’s really didn’t care about their underlings. They were of slightly more value than slaves, but they wouldn’t go to any effort looking for a few missing guards here and there, which was good news for us. It meant we had a little more freedom to act. At our request, Dogsbreath provided us use of some old miner’s fatigues to aid in our efforts to blend in.

As we departed his house our discussion turned to methods for getting down into the mines. The miners all managed this using the main lift on the central tower, so we could probably slip in easily enough with a shift change. The issue with this was that shifts were 12 hours long and they had just changed. We didn’t want to wait that long to get back into action. We could have set up some ropes or even a pulley system on one of the column edges opposite the central pillar so it couldn’t be seen from the center of the city, but this would take time as well, require us to source materials, and it was a long way down (even further back up when moving under your own power as such). I made a proposal that I figured wouldn’t be too popular but was probably our best bet. 

As I explained to my compatriots, the most interesting ability Callista had regained access to during her last upgrade was a bloodline power often manifested in sorcerers of celestial heritage: The ability to materialize and use wings. Of course this wasn’t much use to her, being a hammer and all. Her current body was just too different to utilize them. She could, however, channel it into me. I explained how everyone could pile into the portable hole, thus negating their weight, and I could use the wings to descend safely to the top level of the mines below. The plan understandably met with mixed reception, since that many people in that enclosed of space would have a few minute’s worth of air at most, but with no better options available and a relatively small chance of dying horribly, they acquiesced. Thus I found myself staring over the edge of a certainly lethal drop, asking my warhammer for any last minute flying tips, specifically those related to rapid descent and with two handy haversacks and a bag of holding strapped around my body while my little family of the last few months piled into a small pocket dimension behind me. 

When I was as confident as I was getting, I folded the portable hole back up, tucked it under a strap on my armor, and stepped into thin air, manifesting and spreading Callista’s wings as I did. They were incredible. Beauty that would stand up to any of the angels we’d seen, and powerful. I knew they must have limits of course, but just feeling them made me want to launch into the sky and soar. I fought down the feeling of awe and focused on my descent. It took me a few tries to fully stabilize, and I landed a bit harder than I would have liked, but not enough so to cause injury. I whipped out the hole and helped my companions exit, a mere minute at most after having sealed them away. We took a moment to stare at the pillars stretching up around us and the underside of the mountain peak far above even them.

The place we stood was a long abandoned top level of the mine, one that I would later learn the lift didn’t even stop at anymore. I had spotted and drifted a bit towards a wooden structure on my way down, what appeared to be a very old mining office on stilts. The wood was ancient and hadn’t been cared for in centuries at least, thus nobody was too keen to gamble on the structural integrity of the piece. We sent Shik in, reasoning that he’s by far the lightest among us, and therefore the least likely to cause a collapse. He returned with the only thing of any interest inside: a very old book. Carefully flipping through the dried old pages, we discovered that it was a set of plans for future expansion of the mines. Future expansion at the time of writing, anyways. Morgrym told us that the mines had been deeper than this before he’d left, this book only going down two levels below where we currently stood. Still, if the plans had remained largely unchanged through execution, it would be a valuable resource. Kogu aided us in donning the fatigues and looking like we belonged. Fortunately nobody in the group stood over 5 feet tall other than him, and his magical hat could take care of that. Khauldera and Shik end up looking pretty skinny for dwarves, but they’d pass a cursory inspection.

Morgrym located some descension points and we made our way down two levels through evidently long-abandoned tunnels. Very good to know those were there. When we ran out of map we figured best to make our way to a more central location so as to avoid getting completely lost. Perhaps a central office might even have more up-to-date charts we could study. After some minutes of walking, we saw figures up ahead that quickly resolved into two drow footsoldiers coming towards us with a dwarf in chains. A plan was quickly made, contingent on them not seeing through our disguises. As we drew nearer their glances lingered briefly before returning to the tunnel ahead of them. Shik moved up to the front of the party and Morgrym to the rear as both groups flattened against opposite walls to pass each other in the mineshaft. They struck at the drow in nearly the same instant. Morgrym whipped out the portable hole in front of the lead soldier, letting him tumble in and then closing it up again with his captive inside. Shik drew his rapiers and disemboweled the other in a rapid flurry of stabs and slices. 

I had been ready to clamp a hand over the captive’s mouth in case she screamed, but she barely reacted to this sudden violence. On inspection, her eyes were glazed over which suggesting she’d been drugged. Bardoc pulled out his healer’s kit and was able to work up a cure in fairly short order, something I’m grateful he had since mine was/is a little depleted on supplies after putting together those antitoxins the night before. The soldiers had been carrying the well-made cold iron rapiers and crossbows that are evidently standard issue for their rank, and a number of the crossbow bolts were coated in a sticky poison. As best we could tell it was a different substance than what we’d encountered the day before. After we were certain the soldier in the portable hole would have asphyxiated, we opened it up and retrieved his gear, tossing the remains of his buddy in while Kogu cleaned the area as the day before.

The freed slave became panicked as the influence of the drugs faded. She said they were scrying on the slaves intermittently and they would find her no matter where she tried to hide. After a brief consideration someone suggested The Crossroads. The scrying spell still had a decent chance of finding her there (assuming Zselbor doesn’t have some sort of countermeasure in place, which wouldn’t surprise me), but I would just love to see them try to go get her. I doubt Zselbor would care all that much about us dropping her off so long as we weren’t asking him to play host for free, which of course we wouldn’t. The big problem with this plan was we didn’t have a door handy. There was probably one in the mining office we were already headed towards, so we resumed course. 

Foot traffic got heavier as we worked our way towards the center of the level, but it was entirely composed of dwarves. The office was situated in a large cavern, on stilts like the last one but constructed - or perhaps carved - entirely out of stone. We made note of 3 soldiers standing outside on a broad staircase as we walked on past. Around a corner, the decision was made to have Shik scout using his fancy new cloak. He returned after a few minutes to report six more individuals inside, five of the standard sort and one more heavily armored. The office was made up of two rooms, the larger about twice the size of the smaller. Nothing for it but to just attack then. We parked our rescue in a corner so as to keep her safe and casually strode into position, trying to look like we weren’t about to start a fight.

I kicked off the festivities by throwing a fireball into the main room from atop Khauldera’s shoulders. As soldiers rushed to the windows with their poisoned crossbows, I let off another into the smaller room and swaggered away. Their bolts inflicted mere flesh wounds, and the poison did little more than numb them for me. Upon the commencement of the fight, all of the dwarves who’d been milling around screamed and fled; That is to say all but one man who took up his pick and came to join us with a look that said less “TAKE BACK THE HOMELAND!!!” and more “Guess I’ll fight for my life now, even though I didn’t sleep that well last night, and my back hurts, and my ex-wife didn’t bring me back my favorite pants like she said she would, my front door needs repairs, and I’m out of both flour AND mead”. We worked our way around the front of the building, rapidly dispatching the guards on the stairs. I was just beginning to wonder why I hadn’t seen anything of the armored fellow Shik mentioned when I heard a dull thud from within the structure. Someone closer to the door hollered about a great metal man that had just appeared alongside an armored drow. Guy must have fled at the first sign of trouble to get reinforcements. 

Somewhat amusingly, the construct was so large it couldn’t exit through the door. Khauldera and Bardoc stood outside stabbing and slashing at its legs, but I figured I shouldn’t leave that caster free to do whatever he wanted. I conjured a wall of fire into the room but from what little I could see it seemed to be completely ineffective against either the enemy caster or his iron pet. More traditional methods then. I gripped Callista and once more called her wings to me, launching myself up to the roof of the structure with a mighty thrust and landing atop the smaller of the two rooms. I worked my stone shaping spell and reached down to touch the roof. Stone melted away from the roof on all edges, leaving it separated from the walls that had supported it; It ponderously crashed down atop everyone still in the room, which I learned was just the caster, his construct, and one other soldier at this point. There were a couple limbs sticking out from under the rubble that no doubt accounted for the soldier. I saw the construct stand back up straight after having apparently arced itself over its master in a protective impulse. At least it looked like the falling stone had battered it some.

Unfortunately that ceiling stunt had made me enemy number 1. The great iron golem stepped across the room and climbed up to my position inside of a couple seconds, then thwacked me a several times with its giant arms. The force from the second blow seemed to dissipate as it hit me, which didn’t make any sense until I looked over and down and saw Bardoc stagger a step and give me a thumbs up. Seeing my moment, I hopped backwards off the roof and naturally mangled my landing but used my quick runner’s shirt to get out of the way before the construct could land on me. Fire had been ineffective, but Callista’s flamestrike should be perfectly capable of hurting things that are immune to fire. She let it off on him. Nothing. At this point I finally put together that the thing was probably completely immune to magic. 

The construct closed distance with me in a few strides and as I braced for a lot of pain, something slammed into me from the side hard enough that by the time I stopped skidding I was a good 10 feet away from where Khauldera now stood squaring off off with the monstrosity. I wasted no time taking to the air with the still-present wings (high enough so as to be out of reach - thank Mitra that Dwarvish sense of grandeur applies even to our mines) and channeling energy into her, Bardoc, and Kogu of all people, who was projecting mirror images of himself to confound anything trying to target him. They surrounded it and started it’s rapid and haphazard disassembly. From my vantage point I could see Morgrym jump down into the half-ruined building to aid what must be Shik and our miner ally in taking on the caster while Luci squared off against two drow soldiers that had climbed out the window I’d initially thrown the fireball into. Not sure how he got up on the wall in the first place, magic probably. The construct fell, the soldiers fell, and the caster fell. 

We began the process of quickly looting our kills. Kogu has some engineering knowledge, at least enough to identify what’s valuable. He pulled a small pile of very expensive looking pieces from the inside of the construct, along with a pair of runes inscribed on sturdy paper. The soldiers carried their standard loadout and the caster had quite a few nice looking accoutrements. I swept what ashes I could from the tables in the smaller room, just on the off-chance that a mending spell would put them back together. Fortunately for us the door to this room opened inwards and so there was no obstruction due to the collapsed ceiling. We quickly negotiated a block of rooms with Zselbor for any additional refugees we might send and prepaid him for several weeks of room and board before leaving our unexpected ally and rescued slave with him.

While dragging the bodies over to throw into the portable hole Morgrym suggested that piling them and lighting them on fire may serve to vary up the message a bit while also still communicating the “we’re coming for you and you’re going to die” message. I liked his spirit, but I felt something a little more inspired was in order if we were going down that path. Bardoc and I directed and participated in the arranging of the corpses into the sigil of The Fire Undying before sprinkling lamp oil on them and setting them aflame. He and I took a brief moment to pray inside the the display. I had slight doubts that we might be revelling in brutality a bit too much, but I felt a warm reassurance that this was not the case. Callista for her part, was quite pleased at the ritual. I suspect there’s some personal bitterness mixed into her feelings, given how much these towers are the result of her labor and ingenuity. We chalked the sigil on the door of the ruined building as well before making our exit. Let them fear the fire of Mitra that has come to burn them from his peoples’ homes.

We retreated back into the abandoned sections of the mine and gave the portable hole a decent cleaning before everyone piled in and I flew us back up to the city. The ascent gave me the opportunity to really let loose with the power of the wings and it felt glorious. On approach to the Grinding Gear we heard a commotion and ducked into an alley. Morgrym, being in the front was able to just make out a drow teleporting away with several dwarven prisoners, his father among them. Hell. 

The drow were tossing the bar looking for evidence and we saw the opportunity to turn this unfortunate event at least somewhat to our advantage. Morgrym noted that the pub basement was stocked with spirit barrels and distillery equipment and remarked how violently those things would explode if a fire were to catch. We snuck back into the house from earlier in the morning, ambushed 2 drow guards in the tunnels, again killing them before they could make a sound, and sent Shik to poke his head up into the Grinding Gear’s basement. There were presently no additional drow, but one terrified young woman hiding under a low table. After some urging she joined us and started sobbing into Bardoc’s shoulder while Shik fashioned an incendiary device using a bottle, the last of Morgrym’s kobold swill, and a strip of cloth. We retreated as he tossed it in, unsure how long it would take to cause a detonation if this plan worked.

Not long, as it turns out. We were hardly out of the house when the first explosion sounded, followed rapidly by several more. The tavern wasn’t as utterly destroyed as one might have expected due to the heavy stone construction of it all, however I am confident that everything inside was turned quite dead. We were spotted by a quartet of soldiers and their field commander as they crossed the bridge from the central platform, running towards the noise. We made an attempt to outrun them, but the only person with a stride long enough was Kogu, and we wouldn’t have had time to pile everyone into the hole for a jump back down anyways (especially without being seen doing it), so we turned to fight once more.

The soldiers advanced far too closely together to be altogether wise, and Kogu blinded three of them with his glitter spell I’d first seen him use on a the salt drake outside Portshead. We fell on them and took them apart with ease. After I’d gotten a good swing in and others had moved in to take my place, I stepped back from the brawl and launched into the air again, searching for the commander that we had seen. I identified her further down the street where she appeared to be speaking into a mirror and bellowed her presence to our forces on the ground before weaving a protective spell over myself and moving in to attack.

I stayed in the air as we advanced. She conjured a toxic cloud in front of her which obscured vision, but Bardoc and Khauldera plowed right through it. I conjured 3 chains from the ground around her to lash out at her legs, causing her to fall onto her back. She made an attempt to gather power and cast a spell, probably to escape. Bardoc and Khauldera were on her though and the wounds they inflicted broke her concentration. I swooped in, getting a whiff of the poison as I did but hardly caring. From about 10 feet above her I could see her red eyes dilated to far in terror that the whites around the outside were showing. I dropped down, crushing her skull with Callista. 

With the mage dead I removed her headband from the remains of her head. I could tell it was magical, but we didn’t have time to figure it out now. The mirror she’d been speaking into had survived the conflict so after a brief check to ensure it wasn’t traceable, we tossed it into the bag of holding. A mirror with a communication spell on it could be very useful. With the way temporarily clear, we continued our flight. Morgrym had taken the time to identify some suitable locations in the old mines should we ever need to stay the night down here, and his efforts have served us well tonight, at least thus far. We’re tucked away at the end of a long somewhat winding shaft. As we got down here relatively early in the day, I had plenty of time to go through our takings and record this entry.

I won’t waste space in my journal going through an exhaustive list of our takings - gods know I’m long-winded enough. Suffice it to say we found ourselves sorting through a cornucopia of minor but useful magical items, and a few significantly more choice pieces, my personal favorite among them (because I took it) being a moderately enchanted mithril breastplate. My current breastplate was specifically designed to not limit mobility, but the strength of Mithril allowed this one to be made light and fine enough that such a thing was never a concern, and the enchantment on it strengthens it further still. Very pleasant upgrade from the piece I’ve been wearing since Witry. I gifted my old one to Morgrym, who tends to do more in the way of acrobatic maneuvering than the rest of us anyways and will probably see some benefit from it. I made the first use of my utility scroll when I used some spells on it to read the magic runes we’d pulled from the golem. They contained a more limited version of the Wish spell our duck egg contains, and a geas spell. Powerful assets.

The most intriguing of all the items however ended up being one that I would probably have grouped in with that “cornucopia of minor items” if not for the little bonus it came with. The item was the headband I’d picked out of the ruins of the terrified mage’s head, and at first glance it seemed to just be the standard sort that would make your brain a little sharper and faster. Wielders of arcane magic and crafters favor these sorts of things. As I wasn’t wearing anything on my head anyways, and I do do some crafting and a fair amount of spellcraft work, I laid claim to it. The effect was subtle, but I suspect I may feel it a bit more when actually doing something that requires my intellect. The really interesting part came when a thought about the drow floated into my head. I was laying out my bedroll and idly wondering who Navenna was in drow society, which is something I’ve oft wondered. This time however I knew the answer. Don’t remember where I learned it, I just knew it as sure as I know fire is warm and a dropped stone will fall. I surmised that the headband, whether through deliberate design or perhaps some unintentional osmotic process relating to the mind of its last bearer must have been imbued with knowledge of the drow. That makes it a whole lot more useful.

Back to the issue at hand then. Navenna is a queen. As a prominent figure in drow society she’s a fairly recent emergence, but she has managed to unite much of a normally fractured and tribalistic population behind her. I had known she was a powerful magic user, but I hadn’t known just how powerful. The answer to that, it turns out, is demigod level. She could likely lay waste to half an army on her own, and we should probably be grateful her considerable power and intellect is focused on something else for the time being because even in light of our tendency to come out on top in fights against much more powerful opponents, she could probably squash the 6 of us like toads. 

Hoping to prompt some more newly available knowledge to come swimming into my head, I mended the ashes we’d recovered from the mining office. I don’t think that spell was ever presumed to work for such a task, but it mostly did. Cheeky. We recovered 3 readable pieces of paper, several fingers, and a sock. The woman we’d rescued was fortuitously the very same Khara we’d been told could help us translate the papers from yesterday. The ones she’d been working on had been lost in the raid, but she set to work on the new ones and I aided where I could. We’re going to sleep somewhat early tonight so we can begin planning our next move in the morning. Morgrym has warded the only path to our cave with an alarm spell that should give us precious seconds to leap out of bed and arm ourselves should we be discovered in the night.


	39. Well This Was Unexpected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The occupation of Dhur Kolgrav is ended and now the party must deal with rescuing the slaves sent down into the Underdark. A very powerful asset is deployed.

_Neth 8, 1707 (RW 8/25/2019 & 9/15/2019):_

Today’s been one of those days that goes completely off the rails of expectation, but in an odd twist of fate it actually did so to our benefit.

After our morning meditations and meal, Khara continued working on her translations while we kitted Shik out with the spider kit and sent him to scout the central spire of the city, most notably the tower. Explaining to him exactly what we wanted him to do was a bit of a trick, but he’s not as stupid as I initially thought; It’s more like a profound lack of wisdom. We gave him coal and parchment to make note of each enemy he saw, and encouraged him to kill any he saw standing vulnerable. He returned four hours later with the parchment bearing 63 marks of various shape to denote different types of enemies. Several more golems, some manner of fire beast, a handful of casters and more heavily armored warriors, and a lot of the standard footsoldiers. He’d managed to kill three. Not a lot, but we hoped their bodies would lead the drow to believe we were operating in the city proper and not lurking underneath. He also reported another large mirror like the one we’d seen several of now and a smaller one like we’d taken off the mage the night before. An important looking individual had been speaking into the small mirror. Some sort of closed communication network probably.

While Shik was scouting, Khara declared herself finished with the translation, or at least as finished as she was getting. All 3 sheets were dispatches from Navenna which I will transcribe her translations of here, leaving blanks for what we couldn’t make a reasonable guess at:

_______ destroy tower when _____ complete. Harvest the apparatus and bring to ____.

Dispatch king immediately. Replace with _____. This must remain quiet.

Lluth Drier must be cleansed. We will save our home.

Lots to take in there. I wish I knew whether the order was to destroy the tower or not, but either way it sounds like she plans to take some probably vital apparatus out of it. Sounds like the king isn’t the king, and it also sounds like the actual king is dead. Shik reported that he’d seen the “king” during his scouting and that the monarch had smelled like a wet dog. Pooling together our intel and knowledge, we made an educated guess that he’d been replaced by a rakshasa. So the drow are also guilty of regicide though by Morgrym’s account at least, the king likely won’t be missed much. The last note was odd. It could provide a motive for the invasion, but I wasn’t much thinking about that at the time, and given that they were taking slaves and then subjecting them to the risk of capture by derro, their motives weren’t really of much concern to me. Lluth Drier was a name I recognized as a major drow metropolis situated directly under this mountain in the second level of the underdark, Karathis. I attributed this knowledge to the headband as I can’t imagine where else I would have learned it. 

I queried Callista about this and whether the tower was intentionally sent down into a city. She said they didn’t pay much attention to what was on Karathis as they were sending the towers lower and trying to locate them over the great earthen vaults rumored to be located in the abyssal depths at the lowest levels of the underdark. This was a secondary objective after locating them on ley line weak points. She and Mitra had negotiated with the local xorn in those regions, securing their assistance in defending the towers.

We debated our next move for a seeming eternity. The kidnapping of Morgrym’s father made our initial plan of cutting down their numbers and withering their morale over time less palatable. It had always been a possibility they would try to take revenge on the populace, but this brought it into sharp and personal focus. We needed a different force multiplier, preferably several of them, and we needed it quick. I dug into my new trove of knowledge regarding the two factions we’d seen the sigils of. The spider represented house Nylyss, a comparatively small and violent faction that prizes underhandedness. The wasp was of house A’Deragon, which was relatively unremarkable as drow houses go, meaning they were still violent and underhanded, just not enough so to stand out. The pieces of a plan resolved and fell into place.

The first step was carried out with no challenge. We made our way down to the drow’s passage to the underdark. I was lowered down on a rope and I used magic to shape the stone into a solid plug seven or eight inches thick. If the plan worked, we would go back for the slaves as soon as we could, but this was meant to impede enemy movement in the meantime. We then returned to our saferoom and set up some colored lighting with the help of Kogu’s more showy magic. He disguised himself as a member of house A’Deragon, cast a spell to enable himself to speak their language (which I now recognized as undercommon and I found myself understanding - also the headband I’m sure), activated the sending mirror, and gave a stage-worthy performance. He claimed that they had located the forge, but that they’d been betrayed and were being slaughtered by house Nylyss. Morgrym felt the touch of dramatic inspiration and smashed the mirror with his axe just as Kogu finished in order to really sell the performance.

We returned to the top level of the mines and Kogu sent Ferengus up to scout, happily reporting to us that fights were taking place all across the city. Brilliant. We flew back up and marched towards a guild hall sure to contain another mirror. This would be our ticket to the top of the tower if we could figure out how to use it, and I liked our chances now that I had the headband. As we moved, we threw some temporary mental enhancements at Khara’s mind and had her activate the limited wish rune we’d recovered from the golem. She used the rune to perform a mage’s proclamation (a sort of psychic announcement) to all dwarves within several miles telling them now was the time to rise up and slay their drow oppressors while they fought amongst themselves. We picked up three rebels on our way to the guild hall and booted in the door, ready to beat ass.

I opened the fight with a simple protection spell on everyone as they rushed forward. Morgrym and Shik leapt up to the loft and started laying into the multiple casters up there who were forced to split their attentions away from them to prevent the bulk of our forces from storming the stairs. I saw Shik shake off some sort of enchantment, likely courtesy of the protection I’d laid on him. One enemy summoned a sleet storm but Callista dispelled it after only a few seconds and I sent them a fireball by way of retribution. A dire bat came screeching out of a hall to our right and took a few bites at Khauldera, after which she deftly removed each of its wings and its head in a trio of quick strikes. That prompted a cry of what sounded like anguish from one of the drow on the balcony, and in spite of everything I felt a pang of sympathy stab at my heart. Mere seconds after the dire bat fell, a cloud of fog filled the room bringing the fight to a standstill. A pained and desperate voice yelled out to us in accented dwarven: “You were the aggressors! We are defending our homeland”.

What? THAT got my attention. I was wary of a trick of course, but that sheet from Navenna sprang back to my mind. I judged it worth the risk to have a parley, and Khauldera at least was set on listening to what the drow had to say, her being overly suspicious when it comes to the church (if you ask me anyways, and I admit I’m probably a biased judge). This only got worse after the fog cleared and Khauldera realized the woman who spoke was a full on druid. Guess being a tree hugger gets you enough credit to make up for being a slaver… Anyways. The woman told us their cities are crumbling. She explained that drow are very magically inclined by nature, even moreso than the surface elves they’re descended from. As such even the very construction of their cities relies on arcane spellwork. Some time ago things started falling apart across their territory, and they discovered these mysterious towers leaking a corrupting arcane energy into the land and air around them. Navenna had come with a plan of action and enough factions had rallied behind her for her to call herself a queen. Being monstrously powerful and a cleric of some dark god down there to boot most assuredly didn’t hurt her bid.

The woman with whom we spoke gave her name as Zilveari Mlezzal. She continued to speak with the rest of the party as I walked off into a side room to have a quiet conversation with Callista about the towers. There’s absolutely no love lost between myself and any drow I’ve ever met, and what I’d seen here up to the last few minutes had only reinforced that state of affairs, but if they’re only invading the surface world because their home is being rendered uninhabitable then maybe we can solve that problem so they fuck off home and back to their own business. I admit I was a little concerned that when building the towers they had just sent them underground without care for the people that lived there, though that thought didn’t hold up to even mild scrutiny, since they would have known something exactly like this would happen if underground cities just started collapsing around the globe. Callista assured me the towers were NOT supposed to be doing this, but she didn’t think she’d be able to figure out why they were without access to her books. Nevertheless we agreed it can’t hurt to have her take a look. Any knowledge is helpful.

I rejoined the conversation in the main room as they were discussing the king. According to the drow, they had ridden the tower up and tried to explain their situation to the king, but he was only willing to work with them if he could be paid for it, and they didn’t bring goods to trade - just the armor and weapons they wore. When they failed to make a satisfactory deal he tried to have them killed. I pointed out that even in the best of circumstances, launching a fortress filled with soldiers into the heart of a sovereign nation’s territory is going to cast a rather large pall over any negotiations you then wish to have. They acknowledged but said this was unavoidable. Strangely enough, I got the impression they were telling the truth, at least from their perspective. 

On reflection, evil doesn’t mean stupid, and that in turn means that if good faith negotiation is the most efficient way to accomplish a goal, good faith negotiation will be employed. Based on Morgrym’s commentary, the king would definitely have thrown away a peaceful, hopefully temporary coexistence for the sake of greed. Zilveari confirmed that the king had been killed and replaced with a rakshasa demon. The distaste in her voice was palpable when she said this, not as regard to the regicide which she seemed to have no particular qualms about, but specifically related to the demon. It was the only spark of anything other than dejection we had heard from her up to that point in the conversation.

Seizing on an opportunity to prevent further bloodshed and increase our chances of deposing the monstrosity that had been placed on the throne, I proposed an official ceasefire and a temporary alliance if need be against the rakshasa. When asked why I would do this I explained as above, that I would be more than happy to have the drow return home and never have reason to come near the surface again. It seemed like a mutually satisfying arrangement. That and I was/am actually kind of sympathetic about their home being destroyed. Since this was most certainly not something that was intentional (at least not by any force I’m allied with as far as I’m aware), the most logical course of action would be to solve the problem that’s forcing them into desperate aggressive action. Hell who knows, it may even lay some groundwork for peaceful dialogue with the drow. I’m not sure if such a thing is sustainable in the long term, as even by their own words, their nature is to be evil and they’ve made peace with that. I don’t know - I have a hard time understanding why mortal(ish) creatures of typical humanoid intelligence would each and every one be so drawn to iniquity, particularly when Zilvaeri’s pain over the loss of her companion proves they are in fact more than capable of love. If drow are descended from surface elves then maybe it’s the environment of the underdark that twists them so. Maybe at this point it’s gone too far for their race to recover, or maybe the psychological changes aren’t in their blood and are just the result of the corruption they endure from the day they’re born. Maybe a drow raised in decent society would be a decent individual. Maybe a drow removed from the underdark for an extended period of time would even find their personality changing. These are questions for the future.

With the terms of our ceasefire laid out and a very tentative trust established, our next destination was the tower. Zilveari asked if she could gather more of her kinsfolk from some surrounding buildings, to which we consented, though I informed her as non-combatitively as possible that if she betrayed us I would make sure the cost was VERY high, and she WOULD be one of those who paid it. Bardoc gathered up the dismembered body of her bat, which initially garnered an appalled reaction before he explained that he would attempt to bring it back to life - an act of good faith, mercy to an enemy, etc. We certainly hadn’t shown any of that up until the last 10 minutes, but the opportunity hadn’t really presented itself as we’d seen. Morgrym was pretty understandably not thrilled with the whole whole alliance thing, though Khauldera told him in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up, and I couldn’t hide a chuckle. Not that he doesn’t have every reason to be angry, and I’m not sure she really thought through her position, but it was good for what it was, which was funny.

As we moved towards the tower, Zilveari expressed horror over the infighting and bloodshed her people were inflicting on one another. I didn’t actually know if she was aware we were the ones that caused it, though an educated guess would have probably led her to this conclusion. I don’t feel regret over the plan, or anything we did really, but all the same I didn’t bring it up. This wasn’t the time for salting wounds. When we arrived at the tower we found the entrance barricaded and Morgrym’s father commanding a small contingent of fighters, most of whom weren’t actually warriors by the look of them. Still they had a good position and enough people to overwhelm a few enemies at a time. They stood amidst more drow bodies and those of a few dwarves After another decidedly tense conversation, with Baldor reacting even more poorly to the idea of a ceasefire that Morgrym did, we convinced him to just hold the line and try to avoid any more deaths if possible.

We ascended several levels and there were no traps or security like in the last containment shrine we passed through, though for all I know there may well have been at one point and they’d been long since deactivated or, given how the drow seemed to value their footsoldiers, triggered. The architecture of this one was substantially more artistic than that last too. The door in led to an atrium with a waterfall pouring down from all the way at the top. Several floors were visible around the outside of the waterfall, railed off to prevent accidents as you would expect. The waterfall though… well it wasn’t actually water. It appeared similar to what we’d seen coursing through the glass tubing in Masalworth. This level of grandeur suggests to me that it was one of the earlier containment shrines, before the problem had become so dire as what Callista described to me in the last years before Mitra’s 2nd ascension.

We reached the top without incident, where we found three drow, a glass golem, and the “king”. I let Zilveari do most of the talking while I discussed to golem with Kogu. It could be a problem in a fight. Very tough, all but immune to magic. I don’t like golems. The discussion opened up to include us as well as the drow leader in the room and we secured his cooperation in the ceasefire, though he was hesitant given the fact that restitutions would be demanded for the slaving. We had to assure him we weren’t going to execute him for his crimes, which was probably a reasonable fear given the way we’d been conducting ourselves the last few days. He was afraid Navenna would kill him for cooperating with us, but at this point they’d lost anyways so it was a matter of die in the next few hours or die if she comes for you, and one of those at least had a chance of survival. We agreed to leave the tower up in the mountain at least until we could determine how to mend it, since the runoff would have far less detrimental effect on the local area, us dwarves preferring solid, nonmagical stone as a construction material.. 

The rakshasa listened to all of this and once it became clear we all knew what he was, he dropped his disguise to reveal his true form, that of a large humanoid with a tiger’s head and gold jewelry draped over its body. They aren’t generally pleasant creatures, and they’re wicked powerful. That said, they also generally prefer to sit back and have worship and riches heaped upon them as opposed to having to work for any of it. As it regarded the room of 13 people and one large glass construct, I guess it evaluated it’s chances as not good enough to justify a fight. I caught a glimpse of hate in its eyes directed at me and mine as it muttered that it was only here for the gold anyways and teleported away.

Everyone stood around for a while, evidently not sure what to do next. Bardoc broke the tension by removing Zilveari’s direbat (I would learn his name was Nalfein) from the bag and laying it out on the ground it’s severed body parts arranged as close as possible to where they would be in life. He knelt beside it and closed his eyes, drawing in a slow breath. As he reached for the fallen animal he began to exude a warm glow. Over the next few seconds the glow spread through his hands to the bat and increased in intensity until everyone in the room had to shield their eyes as from the sun. When the light faded and we looked back we saw him slumping exhausted onto his heels and the bat wildly righting itself before looking around very confused and making a mad dash towards Zilveari. She couldn’t see him coming, still recovering her eyesight as she was (drow are very sensitive to bright light I’ve learned), and consequently was nearly bowled over.

After that most of the drow departed while we stayed atop the tower with Zilveari and Balok (their commander) lingering. I asked a few questions I’d been wondering about. The first was just what was in that first order from Navenna that told them to harvest the apparatus. Zilveari said they’d been ordered to harvest the primary processing apparatus and gestured to a wall with a complex set of tubes, levers, and dials on it. This was apparently the heart of the tower’s function. There were then to destroy the rest. I asked her what the deal was with all the male commanders, since I knew now that drow tend to be matriarchal. She said men are commonly used as field commanders, particularly on dangerous missions since they’re seen as disposable. She herself was of little overall value or rank and so was here serving underneath one. Well that fits pretty well in line with what I know about them. Balok departed, taking the mirror with him as he would need it to communicate with his matriarch to prepare for the official negotiation of their surrender. We agreed to meet after lunch the next day for official talks.

Zilveari offered to stay and help us inspect things, but I still don’t want to hand any more knowledge about this stuff to the drow and I especially don’t want Callista’s identity and knowledge pool revealed to them. I urged her to to please help go keep the peace among her people. After she left we swept the place to make sure we weren’t being observed by any magical or physical means, though trying to detect magic here was something akin to attempting to discern a candle’s flame in a burning house. When we were as sure as we could be that nobody was spying on us, I took Callista off my back and walked her around the room so she could get a good look at the place. 

Callista reported that everything appears to be working correctly with the tower, but it’s processing far, far more energy than it was designed to. The apparatus was holding up fine, but it wasn’t keeping up. She explained to me that the towers didn’t release all of the energy they took in. Some of it was too difficult to reprocess and was sequestered off into a series of pocket dimensions. I remarked that this seemed shortsighted, at least given that there was no further action planned that I knew of for when those dimensions ran out. She told me the number of pocket dimensions they could create and utilize was essentially infinite, so running out should never be an issue. The problem here was quite simply (as best she could tell) that the amount of power running through the ley lines was too much for the towers to keep up with and some of it was leaking through to the world around them. Callista said that when they’d built the network of shrines they’d given it capacity to handle three times what the current needs were in case the problem got worse. Ergo, fact that this tower is processing this much magical energy means that either well over half of them have been destroyed or the problem has gotten much, much worse.

Callista said we may find answers at the source of the ley lines somewhere in the Notrior Ocean, but she was struggling to remember even that much. This brought us back around to the topic of her books. Bardoc proposed that we use the duck egg with the Wish spell contained therein to obtain the books back from Navenna. That kicked off a discussion on whether this was worth using such a valuable asset. I was one of the more hesitant among us, but even I had to admit it was a good idea. It was determined that simply taking the books back was a bad idea, since if Navenna figured out where they went she may come hunting us. I proposed simply restoring the knowledge to Callista’s mind, but she feared that she wouldn’t be able to contain it all and it would either be lost or drive her insane. We thought about simply creating a copy of the books, though this presents its own issues. Morgrym proposed something to do with a demiplane and I recalled the plane of all written knowledge Callista had mentioned a few days earlier. I snapped my fingers and said we should simply wish for a way to access that plane. The plane should possess the knowledge we require and theoretically anything else we may want to know. Knowledge is power, and such a sheer volume of it would certainly a worthy trade for something as powerful as the egg. 

We debated the wording of our wish for 20 minutes or so, knowing by reputation that this sort of thing is fickle and prone to backfire. We had the idea to try to grant the plane not just to ourselves, but to Mitra as well since he had never found it as far as we knew. A few more contingencies and we settled on the precise wording:

We wish for a key that allows to access the plane of all written knowledge, made so only we five, Callista, and our god Mitra can use it; Only we five, our lord Mitra, our equipment, and Saint Callista and her container can enter, and only willingly, via any door of our choosing.

Bardoc did the honors crushing the egg in his fist while speaking the words. I felt a powerful wave of magic wash over me when it broke, made the hair on my neck stand up. After some pocket patting and pouch digging we failed to turn up the key and further discussion revealed that I’d been one of the only ones to feel anything - just me and Kogu who’d been standing behind me. The only thing between us was the handy haversack on my back. I removed it and reached in, intending to pull out a key. Instead I found my hand grasping the Atlantean journal. I flipped it open and found the pages to be filling with text, like an invisible hand were writing in the journal before our very eyes. It was progressing much slower than the typical person writes though. By a rough estimate it may take days or possibly weeks to fill out if the whole journal is to be revealed in this manner. Shik wandered over from the rakshasa’s throne he’d been busy prying jewels off of and asked what we were looking at in the journal. He couldn’t see the text. Very interesting. We decided to leave the journal to do it’s thing while we dealt with more immediately pressing issues.

Baldor came in the door shouting about the fact we were making a truce with “those ashy knife-eared cunts”. He grumbled about starting a new revolution and asked why we even bothered to come if we were just going to do this. Morgrym pointed out just how great his last revolution was going before we arrived. I told Baldor if he reignited hostilities I would personally make him regret it. I won’t say he was gracious in defeat, but I think we got our point across.

Our next order of business was to attempt to retrieve the slaves in the underdark. We would take Zilveari with us to placate any drow soldiers remaining. Before we could do that we wanted to make sure someone was present to keep the peace up here on the dwarven side of things. A little asking around revealed the location of their ambassador, a Strovrick Koboldheart. He was a middle-aged man of perhaps 12 decades. He was not thrilled with the task we laid before him, but acknowledged that he was qualified and agreed to the responsibility. Strovrick asked us if we were aware that the Etrelen armed forces were likely on their way. With everything going on I had never really considered it. Gallancaster is a protectorate under Etrela, so once word of their predicament reached Sustra, forces would have been dispatched. Thinking back about when this started, how fast word would travel without any special means, how long it would take to organize and send a force, I would estimate 8-12 days before they could be expected. I asked Strovrick to post sentries to intercept the forces and apprise them of the situation before they entered.

From Strovrick’s house we headed to the central platform again and to the main lift. The platform was massive and pentagonal in shape. Various sigils, crests, and mottoes were carved into the floor. Massive gear wheels on on edges of the platform turned against tracks laid into the wall with remarkably little noise as we descended into the mine. Upon reaching the passage to Taranost, I was lowered down until I found the blockage I’d created earlier that day, I removed as easily as it had been created. The lift was not large and Zilveari wasn’t about to leave Nalfein, so she went down with just him and Morgrym. I waited with everyone else for the lift to return, which took a good 20 minutes. Five drow soldiers stepped off and past us when it arrived, but they made no move to attack. We descended.

Zilveari informed us that 18 slaves had been sent down by her best count. The tunnels had been dug without any particular care given towards organization and were labyrinthine as a result, at least once you got past the first couple branch-off points. They were utterly black with not a single light source anywhere, which wasn’t a problem for most of us. Shik and Khauldera made use of her everburning torch to light their way. We made our best guesses at which tunnels we should go down, trying to follow one where we could hear faint sounds (possibly sounds we were imagining), and marking our path with chalk on the walls as we went. After one 40 foot climb which made me wonder just who the hell had been directing this project and what they’d been under the influence of, we noted a glow up ahead and heard a faint lullaby being hummed. We hurried towards it.

What we found sitting around a campfire were four hooded figures looking to be dwarven in stature. Morgrym greeted them as kinsmen, assuming they were some of the slaves that had come down. One spat back at him and drew back his hood to reveal a face paler than any dwarf’s. Duergar then. Every dwarf who grew up among his own kind has heard stories of these twisted things. They’re to us dwarves as drow are to surface elves. I daresay they’re much less intelligent on average though, because they immediately attacked us. Their four went against our seven (ten if you count the animals), and I’d venture that any two or three of us could have taken all of them without issue.

At the start of the fight Zilveari locked three of them in a corner with spikes protruding from the ground, I dodged an arrow, and their magic user started throwing around fire, which was cute. I would have shown him how it was really done, except I had a mind to take him captive so we could get some information. I threw out a few firebolts and Zilveari softened the ground around the caster’s feet causing him to sink in and messing with his balance enough to prevent him from being able to form any somatic spell gestures. When he was the last one standing Khauldera picked him up by the throat and pressed him for information. He didn’t seem to fear his own death, or at least he knew it was inevitable. He told her they’d sold the slaves to the illithids. Illithids, otherwise known as mindflayers. He told her there were more slaves in the nearby duergar city and taunted her that she’d best hurry before they too were given to the things. When she couldn’t get anything else out of him she tossed a plant seed from her pocket onto the ground below his feet, then used some her limited repertoire of recently awakened druid abilities to make it grow. It grew up through his body and out from his mouth, leaving him positioned upright in a grisly display. That was uh…. Well that was something. Zilveari approved at least. 

There was a discussion over whether to continue to the city. The first impression was that we could never take on a whole city of enemies, but this was countered by somebody pointing out that we likely weren’t looking at a city in the sense of humans or even drow. Such things typically didn’t exist in Taranost. This was more likely to be essentially a large encampment. Possibly some permanent dwellings but not much bigger than a small town by human standards. Thirty residents at the high end probably. We would have gone after them but we decided that the greater good would best served by us making it to the peace negotiation the following day, and it was already growing late so we were unlikely to get much done before needed to head back.

We’re staying in the king’s private home tonight. We went through his stuff too and took anything that might be of use. We’re not taking absolutely everything. The way it sounds, he hoarded wealth from his countrymen and it should be given back to them. We won’t rob them of all of it, but we did take that which would directly help us on our quest. Admittedly it’s a really fuzzy distinction, but our foes seem to get more dangerous all the time. So while I wouldn’t take food off these people’s plates, I will help myself (ourselves) to a non-ruinous amount of the wealth their late king hoarded, and I will endeavor to make sure the aid we provide to them is worth much more than that.


	40. Peace and Philosophy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peace treaty is signed, the party discusses the nature of evil, and they prepare to venture into the Underdark to rescue the slaves.

_Neth 9, 1707 (RW 9/15/2019 & 9/21/2019):_

This morning we took our time bathing before heading to the negotiation at mid day. Balek had a contract of surrender drawn up. Pretty standard stuff. It was noted that the people who were involved in the negotiations were to have their identities kept secret to shield them from retaliation by Navenna. Whether or not that would work, who could say? I’m leaning towards no, but if it’s enough of a pain she may simply not bother. They couldn’t make many changes or additional concessions without further approval from their matriarch, but when pressed as to why they should be allowed to live here essentially for free, they offered their golems as laborers in the mines for so long as they resided. This was agreeable, and the document was signed by all parties present. I sort of feel like there should be more to say about that, but there just isn’t.

We headed to a bar called The Black Yew for lunch and drinks. They had a cinnamon rye made in house and a roast bird dish they called the phoenix (not an actual phoenix - this was discussed at more length than was probably necessary). We ordered several whole birds and enjoyed drinks and tobacco while we waited for our food, having an impromptu discussion on the nature and definition of evil. This was awkward due to Zilveari’s presence, though in retrospect it may not have even been possible without her. The discussion continued as the server set the trays on our table and lit them with a flourish. Fire blazed up for a few seconds before dissipating, and the crackling skin of the bird briefly put a halt to our conversation as we all jostled for the best pieces and spent a few minutes stuffing them into our mouths. After a few minutes the initial feeding frenzy had dissipated enough to allow conversation again, and we continued.

The basic nature of the discussion was the question of what made something evil. It started with us talking about mindflayers, who, disturbingly as all hell, eat brains. Since that made them natural adversaries to us and it’s gruesome besides, we were inclined to think of them as evil. Zilveari however, not entirely hiding her personal investment in the topic, asked why they should be considered evil for just doing what they need to to survive. She reasoned they couldn’t help that they’re predators any more than any other predator can, and they didn’t have any choice in the food they needed to simply survive. The mouse is inclined to see the snake as evil, but the snake doesn’t act with malice; it just needs to eat. It wasn’t exactly impossible to see where she was going with this. She had said drow were at peace with what they were, but I’m getting the impression that may not be as universally true as initially indicated, or at least it isn’t for her. 

Zilveari defended what the drow are with the assertion that it was necessary for their survival. For all I know she’s right, but she could just as easily be lying to herself to assuage guilt. In any case, I’m starting to think there might be something of a decent person in there. All of this proved to just be interesting fluff as she conceded that there was likely to be no peaceful resolution with the mind flayers. Whether or not they were “evil” by any definition, they wouldn’t treat with us because we were just food to them. It’s significant fluff in the grand scheme of things for sure, just not terribly relevant to our current predicament. Maybe someday I can have lofty discussions on the nature of morality while sitting in a plush chair and smoking my pipe. Today I’m preparing to go down into blue hell and fight something that wants to eat my brain. 

While we were discussing this we heard a commotion at the door and saw Old Dogsbreath trying to get in past the owner, who was barring his way on account of the smell. Kogu prestidigitized his clothes clean and gave him a pleasant rose scent - that bit was really a step further than necessary. He stole a couple of our drinks with the boldness of an old man who’s used to getting his way. It didn’t seem worth a fight, especially considering (as he was quick to remind us) we’d blown up his preferred bar. He asked us if we’d like to blow up something else. He then proceeded to describe a “scientific pursuit” he’d been working on deep in the mines, in a cavern only he knew the way to. Apparently it had gotten up and walked off. Literally, as it were. He believes it vanished into the underdark based on the giant hole he found in the cavern wall, but he had more sense than to pursue it. Said we could keep it, at least temporarily, if we found it. I got him to draw us a map on a bar napkin and tossed him a few pouches of the king’s tobacco for his pipe.

Dogsbreath departed and the conversation turned back to mindflayers. Zilveari said they often travel with smaller creatures known as intellect devourers. Another lovely name, that. Apparently they crawl into your head, destroy your brain, and take control of your body. They look like glistening brains on legs, roughly the size of a small dog. I’m starting to wish there was enough water on the surface to just flood the underdark. No fucking wonder my ancestors left. A glimmer of good news though - although they aren’t actually summoned from another plane, they’re nevertheless repelled in the same way by the same array of protective spells I often employ already. We’d pretty much exhausted her knowledge but I wanted more, and I wanted to make sure I had all the right spells primed before we went down. Morgrym wanted to leave immediately, since he quite reasonably believed time was of the essence, but I won out with the argument that going into this ill-prepared was liable to get us killed, at which point we wouldn’t be doing anyone any good. We made plans for the night and split up.

Morgrym accompanied Zilveari to get the blood samples they’d taken from the slaves. Balok had them. Sounds like he wasn’t terribly please with her, but he gave them over. Kogu went back to our temporary chambers to craft us another healing wand since the last one was near completely exhausted. That left Khauldera, Bardoc, and myself. Also Shik, but he wasn’t much use in what we had planned. We located a library and spent the next 5 hours digging up everything we could find on the illithids. Khauldera picked the right book and found us a bounty of useful information. I used my research spell and the blank book I’d grabbed in Hertsbury to supplement by own reading. Bardoc found some really good recipes using Underdark flora. 

What we found on the mindflayers was that their spellcasting abilities are innate rather than learned or granted, they utilize acid and poison in a fight, and they have a magical resistance that as best I can tell from just these texts is probably about equal to the black dragon we fought. They use the tentacles coming from their mouths to grapple their prey and pull it in for consumption. Only a portion of them have been observed to use weapons with the majority preferring to stick to magic and the afore-mentioned grapple maneuver. I think I’ve hit peak horrifying with this subject matter, so at this point everything further is just useful tactical information.

Sometime in the middle of this Morgrym rejoined us. They had acquired the blood samples and used them in conjunction with one of the larger mirrors to scout out some of the escaped slaves. At least 8 were still alive. When I was satisfied we’d gotten everything we were going to get, we headed back to the room. I made a brief detour for a new medical kit and some incense I’ll be needing. We’ll turn in early tonight and get an early start tomorrow.


	41. Into the (Under)Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A journey through the underdark brings up a few unpleasant memories.

_Neth 10, 1707 (RW 9/21/2019 & 9/22/2019):_

I began my day today by performing a special meditation while gathering my spell energy, which is what I’d needed the incense for. This was to increase my resilience to effects targeting my mind It ultimately proved to be for naught, since we haven’t encountered anything wielding that sort of power yet, but it was still a reasonable preparation to make.

Heading down the shaft again we found our way through the maze of excavation the slaves had dug and eventually into the Underdark proper. If I had to guess I would say the reason this particular mess began is that one of the haphazard tunnels intersected an existing one and let in the locals. The ground hosted some plants that Bardoc told us would scream if uprooted. Harvesting tip from whatever recipe book he found? When we’d been walking for several hours, Bardoc caught the sound of footsteps not our own and signaled a halt. Shik not being able to see in the dark, we sent Kogu, who’s reasonably sneaky in an objective sense even if he’s a lumbering oaf compared to the little kobold. He returned to report 4 duergar, armed similarly to the ones we’d fought a few days ago. Their conversation indicated that they knew we’d noticed them. We surged backwards through the tunnel and took them by surprise with sheer aggression. 

The fight was brief and unremarkable. Luci got beat up pretty badly, but he was the only one. Not wanting to waste spell energy on enemies that frankly weren’t worth it, I resorted to my crossbow after throwing a single firebolt. I actually sunk the shot, too, which pleased me since I’m pretty sure I haven’t used the thing since the week I bought it. I’m a spellcaster. I tend towards magic. Their weapons were well-made and should fetch a fair price at resale. Bardoc found some gauntlets on one of them that bore a strength boosting transmutation. We continued on.

Several more hours of walking introduced us to a few additional species of plant, brought us across some more duergar footprints (though we never encountered the duergar who made them), and had us find a bracelet with a house emblem Morgrym recognized. Shortly after the bracelet we emerged into a cavern that was, at least by the standards we’d become accustomed to, brightly lit. I’d estimate it at roughly 100 feet from left to right and 150 to the other side. Large clusters of glowing blue mushrooms grew everywhere you the eye could see, though they were hewn back from what was clearly a walking path. An asymmetric pair of chasms gaped down into untold depths and essentially split the path we’d come in on into three, two branches leading around the outside of the cave and one right through the center. A cavern just off to the left side of our entrance looked initially clear of foes or generally anything useful, but closer inspection showed some odd plant shapes that morgrym identified as creeper vines. There was some other mass of plant matter too. We decided to leave well enough alone.

Zilveari identified the mushrooms as gas spores. She warned against picking them or really disturbing them in any way lest they release a cloud of toxin. She also noted however that duergar seemed to be, if not immune to the toxin, at least very resilient against it. That could be an adaption from living in the underdark, but if other species were not immune, it was more likely their dwarven blood. My people are naturally resilient against poisons and toxins, among other things. Morgrym decided he’d like to collect some to see if it could be used later, perhaps in a trap crafted by Shik or on some arrows. Further along in the cave we could see a purple spidery looking vaguely humanoid creature, identified as an ettercap. We identified that as not an immediate threat so long as we remained clear of its web. Hiding in some of the mushroom clusters we saw another familiar form… one of those damned fungus monsters that had rotted our flesh in Masalworth. I wasn’t all that concerned this time though. We’re substantially more competent (not least because we dropped a certain rat-shaped dead weight), and the rotting sickness that was at the time beyond my capabilities to cure should now provide little challenge. We figured we wouldn’t attack it unless it gave us reason. It was late in the day so hopefully it had already eaten something and was content to just stay in its mushroom bed.

Some stirges (think huge, awful mosquito birds) fluttering around one of the pits made a run at us shortly after we entered. Morgrym managed to land a shot with his gun, which was horrific overkill but damned impressive. Not to be outdone, Bardoc hurled his hammer and turned the other into a smear that he had to scrape off on the ground. A mindfrond along one of the outer paths caught our attention when it suddenly moved to gulp up a derro that hadn’t been there a moment before. Great, so we were being stalked. Fortunately the stupid shit was too consumed with being sneaky he didn’t watch where he was walking. Buuuut where there’s one there’s more. We proceeded with added caution, Morgrym scanning with his drow-made eye contraption that could see invisible things. He didn’t see any more, but the instant we moved past the purple fungus creature it lunged at our backs. Morgrym turned around and panick fired both barrels of his gun into it. I unloaded another crossbow bolt because again, I didn’t really consider this a threat worth using magic on, and Bardoc pounded a wide hole in the thing with his hammer. 

As we turned back around from the fungus beast, we saw 5 derro pouring out of another side cavern up ahead. They were clothed in what appeared to be fresh duergar skins. So I guess while my perceptions of some of the Underdark’s denizens are being challenged as of late, others are just destined to be reinforced. They downed potions as we caught sight of them, several vanishing as they did. One’s skin grew hard and stony, and another (a bard of their own) cast the same hastening spell that Kogu uses on us. Good to know. I’ve been practicing the art of identifying of magic as it’s being cast. The more we know about what our enemies are throwing around, the better we can adapt to it. I threw a fireball into their midst before the invisible ones could get too far away and the fight was on.

The derro’s bard retreated a few steps into the cavern so as to get out of sight while still allowing hs music to be heard by his allies, and the stone-skinned one stood guard at the entrance to the cave. I yelled to Morgrym and established a pattern whereby he periodically provided us updates to the location of the invisible combatants. They were attempting to get around behind us via the path where we’d just see one of their idiot friends get eaten. They managed to avoid the plant, but their plan was generally ruined by Morgrym’s being able to see them. The bulk of us pulled into a defensive formation while Zilveari summoned some sort of lumbering abomination to swipe at the areas Morgrym indicated with his pointing and shooting. We killed two of the sneakers, Bardoc turning one of them into a meat paste on his thrown hammer. The third got away, though I roasted his ass medium-well (overcooked) as he fled.

While we engaged the sneaky ones, Khauldera, Luci, and Nalfein assaulted the stone-skinned guard. His defense was effective, rendering Nalfein and Luci essentially impotent. Khauldera.... was another matter entirely. I’d say the stone skin absorbed a fair bit of the power from her swings, but it wasn’t enough. It began to crack under the relentless assault. Zilveari meanwhile did a sort of short range teleportation right past that confrontation and engaged their bard directly. She didn’t have to engage in a fair fight for very long, as Khauldera shortly stepped over the now headless corpse of the cavern guard to assist.

When the last derro was dead or fled we stripped the corpses for anything useful. Khauldera had the thought to harvest some of the skin off the mushroom beast; she’d read that it could be processed into a cure for the rotting illness they cause. The cave they’d emerged from looked much like a campsite and even had a fire going, though it appeared to not be burning wood but rather some sort of mineral. The flame was less bright and much more blue than any campfire I’d ever seen. It put off a pretty normal amount of heat but released very little smoke. Makes sense for underground applications I suppose. Too much smoke could cause an issue, and most things that live down here have less need for light that surface-dwellers. In a corner there were the mutilated bodies of two duergar, so I’m guessing it had been their camp, and that would also explain the… um… freshness of the parts the derro were wearing. We took their stuff. Couple of pretty nice warhammers, 

Up on on wall of the cave was a small hole, maybe a foot across and with a bloody smear that might have been a handprint underneath it. Bardoc boosted Morgrym up to peer into the hole and there he found two dwarves from Dhur Kolgrav cowering. According to him, there was no exit other than the hole he peered into, so he wondered briefly how they got back there before concluding that one of them must be able to shape stone. He was proven right after he convinced them it was safe and they shaped their way out. They looked like they hadn’t eaten or drank anything in a while, so I dug a couple ration packs out of my bag which they gratefully tore into while I conjured some water. The younger’s leg was broken and Bardoc set to tending it. Zilveari made herself scarce.

We discussed how safe it would be to camp here, since it was surely getting late in the day by this point. We concluded it was as safe as we were like to find, provided a few precautions were exercised. The consensus was that the local creatures wouldn’t cause us much grief as long as we weren’t an easy target. To be a little more on the safe side, we made sure all the bodies of our enemies were laid out as easy meals before having everyone take a last toilet break outside and shaping the stone around the cavern entrance to seal it closed (with air holes, of course). Urinating off of tall things is one of the simple pleasures of being born male, and I so of course I availed myself of the opportunity via one of great chasms in the room. I only mention this because I could hear a slight sizzling sound coming from down below when I did this. Lava? Or at least heat. We know some of the slaves were in a hot dry place (from Morgrym and Zilveari’s scrying), so maybe we were getting close.

For an evening meal I chewed on some jerky while I recorded all of this and worked on mixing up an antitoxin using the mushroom flesh Khauldera had harvested. We talked about what we were going to do with our rescues, since I very much doubted they cared to accompany us deeper, and if they stayed or attempted to journey back on their own they were likely to just be recaptured or killed. We pooled several people’s talents and managed to shape out a crude but functional door in our barricade. It was enough to put Zselbor’s key in, in any case. We got them situated with the others that we’d sent through and made sure to give them the updated news. Bardoc and I had to hold down Khauldera and hit her with several evil warding spells to keep her from going back to the succubus, though [partly] in her defense, it was a lingering compulsion that drove her this time and not a fresh terrible decision. Zilveari will serve most of the night as a guard since since drow retain the lack of a need for sleep from their elven heritage. We will rotate in shifts as usual to aid (and watch) her.


	42. Assault on the Duergar Settlement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party arrives at their destination, kicks down the door to the duergar "city" with the help of some unexpected allies, and get a very large, very fancy new toy.

_Neth 11, 1707 (RW 9/22/2019, 10/19/2019, 10/20/2019):_

The night passed without incident. We awoke to find a sort of fog rolling in. Fog is probably too strong a word; it was more of a haze. It didn’t impact visibility in any meaningful way, but it was present and had an energy about it like the air around a lighting strike. Zilveari told us this was called faerzress (I absolutely had to ask for the common spelling of that one). She said it’s naturally occurring as best she knows and not immediately dangerous but that prolonged exposure is reputed to cause madness, it generally messes with magic, and it absolutely mangles any attempt to teleport. We figured best to have our breakfast while we walked so as not to linger any longer in this stuff than necessary. I asked her just what the fuck regarding the underdark. How does any civilization thrive down here, particularly the drow what with the way their cities are collapsing due to the overloaded containment shrines? Wouldn’t the faerzress do the same thing? She said that once you get below Taranost it actually gets substantially less dangerous. Seems counter-intuitive, but I suppose she’d know. Maybe it’s just that they’ve tamed it.

As we delved deeper we passed by some fungus that looked like rotting flesh, but mercifully didn’t smell like it. We came to a large chamber filled with bones, and in the center a muddy pit. Not ominous at all... It didn’t register any magic, nor did it (or anything inside it, to be more accurate) respond when we chucked some bones in. We hit it with some fire, nothing. Zilveari piped up that she’d heard rumors that faerzress can revive bones, so we got moving again. We simply skirted around the pit and through the bones to reach the other side of the room. Bardoc and Shik got scorched a while later by some steam vents they weren’t quick enough to dodge. It was nothing that couldn’t be easily remedied with the healing wands.

We began to encounter buildings in wretched states of disrepair. Some looked like they’d been stayed in recently, but none looked like they’d been loved in a long time. Underfoot the ground began show bits of stonework path, most of which had been worn away or destroyed over years. At one point we noticed an ochre jelly following us, but it couldn’t keep the pace we were walking and we quickly lost sight of it. As the smell of sulfur wafted into our nostrils and Morgrym spotted some fresh tracks in the dirt up ahead, we heard voices echoing from the tunnel in front of us.

Minutes later we emerged into another large cavern. Through the middle ran a large gorge and when I peered over the edge I saw a lava flow at least 100 feet down with some meandering fire elementals on the surface. An unremarkable, though sturdy enough looking bridge spanned the chasm and on the other side we saw a lightly armored duergar woman flanked on either side by two fire giants. Some rock outcroppings jutted over the magma river and played host to further duergar with crossbows. I initially wondered how they’d gotten there since there was no visible path, but then noted the tunnels behind them in the rock. Across the bridge I saw a closing gate. They surely surmised why we were here. I thought about turning back to find another way, but we had no guarantee of finding one and it would just give the enemy time to prepare. I noted that the fire elementals didn’t really seem to care about the impending fight, so I yelled down to them in Ignan.

We exchanged a few sentences. The hisses and pops of their native tounge bouncing readily off the stone walls of the cavern. I asked them if we could offer them anything for their aid in this fight. They said they wanted to go home to the plane of fire. After a brief consideration I decided I knew how to make this happen and told them I could provide this service as soon as I’d had the opportunity to prepare the necessary spells in my daily meditation, and no later than when we left the city after our... uh… business… was concluded.

I was keeping an eye on the circumstances around me while this occurred, so I was aware when the duergar on the other side of the chasm downed a potion and took to the sky. I’m sure she figured that whatever I was saying to the elementals, it wasn’t in her best interest to allow the conversation to continue. She was too late. I requested they scale the walls and deal with the crossbowmen, which they did with alacrity. I saw Khauldera toss down an empty bottle and vanish as I turned my attention to the flying duergar woman. As she drew nearer I was able to identify a holy symbol in her hand, marking her as a fellow cleric though certainly one of some dark underworld god. A large rock that had clearly been meant for me smashed just under the ledge in front of where I stood, and I shifted my gaze downwards briefly to see the giant who threw it already picking up another.

The enemy cleric flew towards us, mumbling something and gesturing. She came to a halt in a position perhaps 10 feet in front of me, far enough over the edge of the chasm to be out of range of any of any melee strikes. I felt a wave of energy that was just profoundly *wrong*. It sapped the strength from my body and I dropped to one knee, struggling briefly to even remain upright. Whatever she hit me with had done a number on my muscles, but it didn’t touch my mind. I put a few observations together and determined that this spell of hers couldn’t possibly last long with power like that. Its affects on the targets may linger for a minute or two (which, in all fairness is more than enough time to kill a person if it always hits like this), but I suspect the actual energy projection from her wouldn’t last more than a handful of seconds at best. Observing her position on the battlefield, I nearly burst out laughing like a madman. This was just too perfect. Juuuuust a matter of timing....

I waited until I felt the aura dissipate because I didn’t want it to interfere with what I had planned next. I threw a firebolt at her in the meantime to keep her from thinking I was up to something. The instant I felt her spell dissipate I raised Callista to point at her and triggered my hammer’s best Dispel. I may have mentioned it at some point 100 pages ago, and it’s surely in the history books, but it’s fun to write - Callista was renowned in life for her ability at dispelling magical effects. She shredded through the most active enchantment affecting the enemy cleric: The one allowing her to fly. 

With her flight spell negated and no solid floor beneath her, the pale dwarf plummeted into the fiery depths below. A 100ft fall isn’t anything to be scoffed at, even if it had been water she was falling into. It wasn’t of course. Still I know she didn’t die on impact, because fresh screams continued to fill the air for the next half a minute. As she fell I saw one of the crossbowmen join her, bull rushed straight off the ledge he’d been standing near by one of the fire elementals. He did not survive the fall. That left a 2v1 fight where he had stood and his ally was quickly dispatched. The 3rd elemental had climbed up to face the two on the other platform and, despite assistance from Zilveari in the form of a roc, he was taking a beating. He took it well, and it may even have killed another creature, but elementals not being entirely solid the bulk of the force was going to waste. When he started to flag too hard he retreated back to the fire pit. I guess he wasn’t willing to die for us, which is fair enough.

About the time the second duergar took a long fall to a firey death, I saw Kahuldera briefly reappear behind the fire giants with a scroll in her hand before growing in stature and transforming physically to match them. She then proceeded to beat on them, which they returned in kind probably a bit harder than she’d anticipated. It kept them from throwing rocks long enough for Bardoc to get over to me and restore my strength. I immediately took to the air on Callista’s wings and flew over to pour some healing magic into Khauldera to keep her standing. A bullet whizzed ahead of me as I flew and took out a good sized chunk of a giant’s shoulder when it hit. I glanced back to see a satisfied grin on Morgrym’s face and Bardoc charging across the bridge. I got to Kahuldera in time to keep her fighting, partly thanks to Kogu’s hastening spell. Between additional shots from Morgrym and Bardoc finally getting to throw his new hammer (which looked really cool, for the record), the fire giants fell. 

One duergar remained alive on his platform, and seeing everyone else fall, he retreated through the tunnels. Khauldera, still in the form of the fire giant and thus utterly immune to heat for the next 15 or so minutes, climbed down into the lava river and swam over to the charred corpse of the duergar woman, hauling it back up so that we could loot it. Any scrolls or other such items she had possessed were destroyed of course, but wearable magic items are deceptively resistant to damage, so we picked a few decent pieces of gear off of her. My favorite was the amulet of natural armor, which I claimed for my own to replace my slightly less powerful version (gave to Kogu). I did a brief circuit of the archery platforms and collected anything of value before we spent a quick minute checking and healing injuries.

After only a few minutes we heard a mechanical growl starting up beyond the gate and figured best to go see what they were up to rather than give them time to get a defense put together. Through the gate and around a slight bend we discovered the source of the sound, which could ONLY be the mechanized experiment Old Dogsbreath had told us about. The thing was massive, with a spherical body I’d estimate to be roughly 40ft in diameter. Long legs with feet large enough to smash a giant into the ground (I know this from empirical evidence) stuck out from all around it, and were just in the process of lifting it from the ground as we entered. A large glass window in the central body showed a pilot operating some unseen levers, and two manned ballistae atop it swivelled to take aim at us. The cavern in which we found ourselves was hundreds of feet long, at least 100 wide, and high enough that the ceiling was difficult to make out. Smallish towers were dotted throughout, and a very small (as these things go) volcano sat near the center of the room. On the far end sat one final, much larger and very well-appointed stone tower.

At the same time the giant mechanical monstrosity was powering up, we saw three dwarves in ratty clothing running towards us. That seemed suspicious, but since we couldn’t identify anything in their manner other than pure terror, we concluded that they were just set loose as a distraction. Khauldera and Morgrym quickly instructed their animals to take the slaves to safety while the rest of us kept our attention focused forward. Apart from the mech we picked out a handful of duergar either taking up defensive firing positions or moving forward to engage us, with more fire giants in the process of picking up rocks and arching back to throw. The ballistae loosed their bolts and missed miserably. Bardoc replied by hurling his hammer, which smashed through one of the mounted weapons before hitting its target. I took to the air again and bathed both firing positions in flame as I closed the distance.

I took note that there only seemed to be the one pilot inside the mech as I came in for my landing. I smashed the gunner who was still standing with Callista and began a summoning spell. A gargoyle I hadn’t previously taken note of landed beside me and started swiping, threatening to disrupt the delicate task. Through a lot of dodging away from blows and a few moderate fleshwounds, I managed to hold onto the spell long enough to complete it and hear the quickly-cut-short scream of the pilot as he was (presumably) thrown across the cabin by a magma elemental. I stood a few rounds with gargoyle before determining that his skin was diffusing too much of the impact from my strikes and taking back off into the air. I ordered my elemental to exit the mech and disrupt the duergar’s back lines as I did, and I saw through the window that Morgrym had boarded the vehicle and was studying the control levers

As I repositioned myself in the air above the majority of my team, I saw what looked like a staggeringly large duergar that must have deployed from the bottom of the mech while I was fighting atop it. He held a large shield with two halflings roped to it. Or rather I should say he held a large shield with one halfling and what looked like it used to be a halfling roped to it. I would later learn that Bardoc had hurled his hammer before truly taking in the nature of the situation and that while the blow had been staggeringly powerful, it had been caught on the shield. No more halfling. So that was gruesome. A female voice somewhere hundreds of feet deep into the cavern called out for reinforcements and I saw more enemies flooding out of the towers. A stream of magma poured from the bottom of the mech and vanished into the ground. A few moments later it rose back up into a vaguely humanoid form behind one of the enemy crossbow positions 20 feet away and beat the archer there into the ground. I watched with one eye as my elemental pushed further towards the large tower, flowing through the ground when it saw fit and at other times simply charging straight towards the enemies. I would say it felled as many duergar as I did in that fight.

At the same time the elemental was beginning its push and our frontline fighters were dealing with the large duergar and closing fire giants, I made an effort to heal some of our wounded. I heard a sudden thud paired with a scream and looked up to find one of the mech’s feet crushing the lower half of a duergar combatant. I could still see Morgrym through the window and I read the comprehension and joy on his features as he started working levers and the mechanized beast lumbered deeper into the cave after the magma elemental. He stepped on several enemies, including one of the afore-mentioned fire giants. Given the amount of empty space around the enemies, I have to conclude he was doing it deliberately. I applaud the creative thinking. The gargoyle that had been assaulting me did not. He and his buddy landed on the front of the mech as it lumbered backward and started trying to bust through the glass to tear Morgrym’s face off. Zilveari and I (her in the form of a Roc) gave pursuit and tried to stop them. I found greater success with fire than I had with my hammer. Morgrym just sat working the controls, still grinning and with his double musket loaded and within arm’s reach. Meanwhile the mech seemed to have reached it’s top speed, which was about as fast as I can sprint, though I suspect it could maintain that speed for a good deal longer. 

Short legs aside, we dwarves are natural sprinters. So while i’ve seen horses or eagles move faster than that mechanical monster, it’s speed was enough that when combined with it’s truly impressive mass and sturdy dwarven construction, it hit the large tower in the back of the cave with spectacular results. Half of the structure fell to the ground and debris rained everywhere. I had been forced to rejoin my allies at this point, but I took note of a duergar figure stumbling out of the dust cloud and making haste towards us, apparently liking her odds a lot better on this end of the cavern. I saw the mech smash it’s bulk around a little more and then it went still. I didn’t have time to go and see if Morgrym needed help, and Zilveari had made sure both gargoyles were good and dead before returning to us. I figured if anything tried to come in the bottom, he could hold them off pretty well with his gun, and if they got past the chokepoint they would find themselves in an enclosed space with a werewolf.

The event that had forced me to return to my other companions was Shik’s mortal wounding at the sword of the fire giant Khauldera was engaged with. I raced to get above him while carefully staying out of reach of the giant, and poured out some healing energy at nearly the same time Pherengus arrived from Kogu to do the same. I told him to get the hell back from the heavyweight slugging match, which he happily obliged, taking up a position some 40 or 50 feet back with his bow. Two duergar were still in range along with the giant, and the one from the tower was closing the distance. One threw earth magic at me, the other crossbow bolts. I answered with flame. The duergar from the tower came in range and revealed herself to be another powerful magic user (priestess, judging by her spell style). She targeted not me, but Khauldera... and drove her completely, violently insane. It was a relatively small change from her normal demeanor in a fight, but I caught it, knew I couldn’t fix it, and recognized the rather large issue it was going to become once we were NOT in a fight. At some point in this, somebody reached the dropped shield of the giant duergar and untied the surviving halfling, who gave the priestess a wide birth as he ran for the mech.

I blinded the remaining fire giant, and with Bardoc’s aid Khauldera finished killing it. We felled the two weaker duergar before focusing all our efforts on the priestess. Pursuant to the goal of not having Khauldera try to cut any of us apart after the enemies were all dead, I didn’t bother to heal her and instead focused everything I had on the target. I figured once we were done and if she was injured enough we could tie her up, give her enough care to keep her alive, and transport her safely back to the city where hopefully someone could help. That got a little iffy as Zilveari very nearly got killed by the priestess while the fight raged on. By the end Khauldera was apparently being sustained purely on rage, because the moment the target in front of her died, she dropped. Dead. Well I guess that’s a cure for insanity….?

I didn’t panic, since I well knew death isn’t the end and I knew Bardoc and myself both to be capable of bringing her back to us. Shik on the other hand… It was oddly not quite as heart-wrenching as hearing Zilveari’s scream for Nalfien, but he cried out and ran to her, and the way I hear it it took several minutes to convince him that she would be okay and he needed to let go right now. I was looking around for further threats, which I identified none of. What I did see were what appeared to be duergar children peering out of the towers. I expressed concern that we would be leaving them to die down here alone, but Zilveari said that based on her knowledge of duergar cities this would be but the top layer and there should still be adults down below to care for them. Of course they probably just watched us kill their family members, but there was simply nothing to be done for that. Duergar have shown us nothing but hostility at every turn, and I wasn’t going to try for diplomacy when we were on a time sensitive mission to rescue Morgrym’s countrymen from literally being eaten. No. Peace wasn’t an option here and I feel no remorse, though I will allow a measured amount of sympathy. We left them the children be.

As soon as I was satisfied we were safe for the immediate future, I instructed the party to strip valuables from the bodies in the customary fashion and then get everyone to the mech. I had noted Morgrym popping his head up earlier to survey the battle and he hadn’t seemed to be in any danger from his position. For my part I bolted out of the cavern and caught up with the fleeing prisoners and animals. Told them to come with me. I collected the fire elementals in the same fashion, still having a debt to pay. We had achieved our goal here, and we were leaving. I found that the others had had Morgrym move the mech to make the bottom hatch accessible for our passengers, so we all piled in, the elementals segregating themselves so as to avoid burning anything. With everyone aboard he maneuvered it back on top of the building and and showed us what he’d been up to: looting like a brigand. He’d secured the help of the surviving halfling and had been taking everything that looked even remotely valuable. We posted lookouts and helped him finish collecting... let’s call it reparations. I invited the elementals to take what they wanted as further thanks for their assistance.

Fully aware that we probably shouldn’t stick around for too long, but also confident in our lookouts and the ability of the mech to plow through most threats, we indulged our curiosity regarding a staircase that led down from the room we were looting. What we found was wholly unexpected.

At the back of the room we had descended into we found ourselves looking at a fully equipped forge, but instead of flame and fuel at its heart the hearth was filled with transparent crystals refracting a purple glow that seemed to come from underneath. That… looked like the forge the drow were apparently after. In spite of what it seemed to be, it registered no magical aura at all, which I found very peculiar. There was something halfway between a slime and a shadow over the hearth, unmoving except for bubbles that would occasionally rise to its surface and pop. Morgrym poked it with a stick, which it immediately began creeping up the length of. He promptly let go, and we watched as the stick was rapidly dissolved/consumed. 

I asked Callista, who identified it as a vespergaunt, sometimes also called a heresy ooze. She said they served as emissaries to ancient godlike entities from deep space. I’ve heard of these types of things before, but there’s very little known to general academia. They’re said to be horrific, mindrending entities. I’ve even heard there are cults of people that worship and try to contact them, though for the absolute fucking life of me I could never understand why. If you’re that desperate for power, you’d do better to entreat with a creature that will be bound by its word to you. Even Asmodeus will honor an agreement to the letter, though he’ll try to screw you over with every sentence of it. But then maybe they’re just cracked in the head. Speaking of cracked in the head, shackles around the room gave me the chilling intuition that the duergar had been feeding people to this ooze. Feeling less bad about slaughtering them in front of their children now… Callista said that Mitra had first encountered these entities between planes. I’m not sure the significance of that, but it’s information I have and thus I record it. She said they’re sensitive to light, which was good news since I do know a few neat tricks with sunlight. 

Callista was pretty certain we could best the heresy ooze in a fight. Morgrym was very much not having that idea, especially having just learned of Khauldera’s condition. I was tending to agree with him, though more from the position that if we killed it then there would be nothing keeping the duergar from using the forge, and since it didn’t really appear to have been used recently, I’m guessing that it was presently doing just that. While we were debating the finer points of this I heard a voice booming in my head, and it put me out of my senses for a short time. As soon as I came to I told everyone what had happened and we agreed to fuck out of there.

There was really only one entrance large enough for the mech to have come in through, and so that’s the way we went. We haven’t come to any major forks yet on the way, and Morgrym is currently instructing Kogu on piloting the mech so as to allow himself to sleep. Once the shock had worn off I managed to diagnose the words I’d heard in my head as a form of Aboleth, and come up with a decent attempt at translation even: “What do you wish of the one who are all”. The grammar leaves something to be desired, but that’s probably just a translation error. Anyways that’s perfectly ominous to fall asleep to.


	43. Triumphant Return to Dhur Kolgrav

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party returns to Dhur Kolgrav. Erend makes good on his promise to the fire elementals and finds a mighty bargain on a piece of magical equipment while he's doing it. They discuss some future plans.

_Neth 12, 1707 (RW 10/20/2019):_

The movement of the mech as it walked along all night was surprisingly soothing, with a brief interlude of spastic jerking as Kogu got accustomed to the controls once Morgrym retired to his bedroll. I slept well and awoke to what I confusedly thought was sunlight for a couple seconds, before realizing that it was a fully rested Bardoc restoring life to the fallen Khauldera. Living though she was, she remained beaten and slashed to a pulp, and so I bandaged some of her wounds and healed others. There was no sleeping anyways after that point, since Shik was fairly running up the walls in excitement. We arrived back in the mines unmolested.

As soon as we’d stopped, I led the fire elementals outside to make good on my promise to them. My significant resistance to heat wouldn’t be enough to protect me on the actual plane of fire, so I had Callista hit me with one of her spells - a slightly different flavor of the one I enjoyed while the dragon had been spraying acid in my face. I joined hands with the elementals in a circle, focused my mind, spoke a word, and popped through the fabric of reality. 

I opened my eyes to see a nearly indescribable amount of flame. I’ve done a fair bit of reading on the planes, so while this wasn’t a surprise academically actually seeing it in person was awe-inspiring in a way that books can never do justice to. A light dusting of ash coated every surface and what looked like vegetation made of flame sprouted from the ground. Every direction I looked I could see firestorms raging miles wide. Perhaps a half mile from where I stood was the outer gate to a large city. The walls were tall and thick, though the top of a cathedral poked out above them. There are rather few cities in the fire plane that I know of, but I was fairly certain I now found myself outside the City of Brass. A bustling bazaar was set up outside the front gate. I bid farewell to the elementals and they left with their treasure.

Focusing my attention on the bazaar, I absently removed the pearl of power Alric had given me from my satchel and recharged my planar transit spell. I wasn’t sure how they would treat a native of the material plane here, but I had a burning curiosity to see what they might be selling. Moving close enough to get a better look at the shoppers I was able to pick out several humans, wizards by the looks of them. Taking that as a good sign, I strode in, putting in a conscious effort to not look like some out-of-place rube. On retrospect I suppose the fact I’d made it here and wasn’t currently burning alive gave that impression in and of itself, but still I didn’t want to gawk. 

Most of the wares on display were of a mundane nature, simply made with materials you wouldn’t find back home. One stall caught my eye though, run by an energetic efreeti who introduced himself as Lavis. I inquired about three particular items. One was a pair of gems that could be used to rain fire over a swatch of a battlefield, and another a cloak of fire that would harm anyone attacking you, and as a bonus allow you use of a few healing spells. That second item he told me was made with teachings from Mitra himself, though he may have simply seen my sigil ring and been trying to make a sale. The item that really spoke to me though was a staff, 4.5ft long and made of an ashy grey wood. It was adorned with brass fixings, molten and flowing through the channels they would have normally been set into. I asked about it and learned it was simply a staff of fire, made to the same magical spec as the ones of the material plane that I’m familiar with, just with local materials (he proudly told me the wood came from a tree in his back yard, in fact - so I guess non-flame based vegetation does grow here somewhere). I confess I’ve looked at these before, but it was basically window shopping since they’re so damned expensive.

I asked about the price on the staff, expecting a number that was well beyond my ability to pay. What I got back was 6,000 gold pieces. Six Thousand! That ‘s just under a third of what these things sell for in our plane. I remarked upon it. Lavis told me that the materials were easy to come by here and the magic much simpler to weave thanks to the nature of local reality, which made a degree of sense I suppose. He was also, I suspect, still giving me a discount for some reason. He didn’t seem to have met a dwarf before, so perhaps he was charmed by my very fine beard and shiny head. Maybe he’s just hoping for repeat business. Well he’ll get it if I can ever make my way back here. I was lucky to land at the city in the first place - that plane shifting spell is not great for geographical accuracy. Anyways I dumped out nearly every coin in my purse and took the staff home with me. Now I just need a excuse to light something on fire again. 

After bidding Lavis farewell and thanking him for his generous price, I repeated my spell and popped into The Crossroads. We had discussed this as my return location since it wasn’t big enough for me to end up 100 miles away from my intended destination, and I suspect Zselbor has enchantments in place to redirect incoming planar travellers to specific spots in the lobby, lest they appear in somebody’s room. I’d arranged for someone to meet me here so I could hold their hand when exiting and thus end up back in Dhur Kolgrav. I found Bardoc asking Zselbor about the vespergaunts when I appeared, trying to get any useful information on fighting them. Zselbor told him to not go crazy, since they do like to fuck with minds (this I had noticed), and apparently they eat the souls of the defeated. Of course they do. We asked about a way to reliably return to the city of brass and told us he could signal us when he had clientele from there that might be willing to give us a hand.

Back in the mech we went through everything we’d gathered. A pile of potions and scrolls along with a few wands, various magical curiosities, a few heavily enchanted pieces of clothing (I took a better cloak of resistance than the one I’d made), and a very nice shield, along with tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of finery and various other toss. Some of it we may have to sell in Hertsbury, but the weapons I’m sure they will take here. We set up an impromptu market in the corner of The Black Yew, though the owner didn’t seem to mind so much since most everyone who came in bought at least one drink.

We discussed the mech with Old Dogsbreath who said he’d fix the windshield for us (one of the gargoyles had smashed through it before Zilveari killed it) for a moderate fee, which was readily agreed to. We also discussed some additional armaments and how to get the mech out of the hole it was in. He has some ideas on that. Something about collecting a volatile gas and using it as a propellant to lift the thing into the air. I have to say this seems like a bad idea.

I discreetly checked the journal when I had a chance, and found that it was still a long way from being finished, but it seemed to be following the journey of a man who lived at the beginning of a new age (right after Earthfall perhaps). He was desperately trying to carry out the last commands of his god Aeyer. I’m interested to read more.

Zilveari confronted us back at the king’s house and asked what we would give her for keeping secret the existence of the forge from her fellow drow. I was afraid that was going to come up. As it turns out she didn’t really want anything we weren’t willing to give anyways - Actually a smaller share of the loot than she was by all rights entitled to, and simply to accompany us to Hertsbury when we returned, possibly further if necessary. She really just wants a place to call home that’s far away from here. I respect that, and with the share she took she should be able to purchase a decent house outside town. With her magical talents, I’m sure she can make a comfortable living.

With the possible exception of a brief excursion to get the gas for the mech, we don’t really have any plans until the soldiers arrive and so I’m planning to spend the next week getting some much needed rest, as well as finally working on some pieces of equipment I’ve been wanting to make forever.


	44. Old Family and New Toys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erend works on making some new equipment, helps Bardoc atone for some misdeeds, and contacts his family for the first time in months.

_Neth 17, 1707 (RWL In between sessions, 11/2/2019):_

My purchase of the fire staff has thrown something of a wrench in my personal crafting goals, since I now have far fewer funds to work with than I’d been planning on. Still I’ve managed to make good use of the downtime thus far. 

I found a suitable piece of red crystal in a shop and managed to fashion myself a monocle with a steady deathwatch enchantment on it. Seemed like something that would be useful since I spend a lot of time trying to keep my cohorts from dying. As a bonus it’s good for identifying undead, constructs, etc. Truth be told I’m not completely certain that I’ll get significant use out of it, but the materials didn’t cost an exorbitant amount as these things go, and I wanted the practice. I worked with Kogu on it. It’s been really beneficial having another person well-versed in spellcraft around. We did have to mitigate a power surge at one point, though it left a lingering - I don’t know I guess I would call it static - in the piece that has apparently rendered it completely immune to gravity. I don’t really see that ever being useful, but it’s not hurting anything either and it is sort of cool.

Bardoc came to me on the 14th and asked me to aid him by performing an atonement ritual. It seems we didn’t all have quite the full story on that halfling that got splattered. Bardoc had in fact identified the full scope of the situation before he threw his hammer, and rather than taking the time to make his blow more precise or find an alternative solution, he’d hurled his hammer full strength directly at center-mass. That’s how we ended up with halfling paste on the floor, and evidently Mitra had been paying attention and was not happy. Bardoc had found that as soon as we were out of danger and Khauldera was alive again, he could no longer use any of his powers. He’d taken a day to come to terms with this and get himself in the right headspace and then come to ask my aid. We performed the ritual that day, and thus I didn’t get anything else done.

I spent the 15th, 16th, and 17th making myself a new set of boots for Elflien. I’d found the schematics for the enchantments in a book, and they seemed like just the sort of thing to have in wet, potentially swampy, and probably insect-ridden terrain. They call them Boots of the Mire. It’s been a while since I made boots, and I needed Morgrym’s help for some of the more natury spellwork since my gifts don’t really lean that way. We ran into a bit of a hiccup along the way with materials, but he was able to acquire the necessary replacement components and they turned out great. 

In the midst of this all I’ve been taking advantage of the fact that I haven’t needed to incinerate anything or un-incinerate anyone to perform some sendings and check in with various people, as well as contact my family who I’ve been neglectful of the past several months. I spoke with my father, I wouldn’t say at length because the nature of the spell doesn’t allow for it, but I let him know I’m safe and I gave him some important points about what’s going on out here. They’re in preparations for Mithramerag, which my kingdom celebrates with a multi-week feast. My sister Reyla caught the boar this year. She was always a fierce one. More-so than her ability really, but it sounds like she’s grown into it. Little bother Jonak is walking the same path as me, apparently lit his beard on fire last week. Wish I could tell him that was the only time that would happen…

I did tell my father about Navenna and give him a very brief (again, spell limitation) rundown of the situation with the containment shrines and the fact that while Navenna does seem to be a psychotic bitch, the drow are also legitimately desperate as their cities crumble through no fault of their own. He told me drow had been reported gathering down below, but they thus far appeared non-hostile. Hard to say the right course of action. Best not to provoke them conflict where there needn’t be. If the ones here are any indication they won’t resort to violence on their own unless they feel it’s necessary. My father wishes to speak face to face and I suspect this isn’t 100% due to his desire to see me again. He had mentioned a secret to me before I left, something that explains why our society has had such extremely limited contact with outsiders the last several centuries. He never shared what it was - it’s not to be revealed to anyone under 40, even royalty. I’ve wondered occasionally, but never dwelt on it too long. Figure I’ll learn it when I need to learn it. That time is probably soon now. I told him I would try to bring the party by after our Elflien business (should be able to manage a teleportation spell, probably use the crossroads as a place to stash a few people if needed). He asked that I let him know before-hand if possible so they can prepare a feast.

With this in mind I contacted Imryll, the captain of our ship. I asked her if it would be feasible to journey from our drop-off point in Elflien to Gramberdon, Etrela’s largest naval and commercial port. She replied in the affirmative, telling me it would take 50-60 days depending on winds. We went over some details and I directed her to the Crossroads through the Hertsbury entrance, where we met tonight so I could sign some papers regarding the journey and the official naming of the ship. After I came up with some good ideas and got everyone else to give it the barest amount of thought, we settled on “Fate of Zarthryss” - Zarthryss being the dragon we had slain. We gave her some coin to have the taxidermied head mounted on the prow. I was initially concerned this may draw the ire of any dragons we may encounter, but a little reading reassured me that most dragons find their black cousins about as charming as we did. I provided her a password to pick up the head, which I later sent to Mimdefirin so he’d know she wasn’t trying to abscond with our property. We’re going to see if we can find some trade goods in Elflien to haul to Gramberdon too. Long as the ship is making the journey, we might as well make some money off of it, pay the crew well, etc.

My last set of contacts was with Tharja and Takden. Takden reported that Masalworth still stood and it appeared the kytons were biding their time. She is remaining in the shadow plane and investigating more towers bathed in the same purple light as the one that had appeared there. Tharja reported that her pack were hunting and killing rogue kytons in the woods around the town. She had received a carrier falcon indicating that military forces were en route. 

I ended up in an armorer’s shop at some point in the last 48 hours with Bardoc, just browsing around. It seems the drow are finding a place and a measure of acceptance with the artisans in the city thanks to their magical talent, and thus their usefulness in crafting magical arms, armor, and various other implements. While I was here chatting with one, I had my eye caught by a unique looking shield. It was a pretty standard shape, except for two small protrusions that looked like hands, each grasping a crystal (one blue, one red). The metal on inspection turned out to be mithril. This wasn’t obvious at first glance thanks to a dark oil rubbed over the surface which pooled especially into the decorative engravings on the face. The drow I was speaking to beamed with pride at this item and demonstrated to me that if you strapped the shield to your arm and tried to cast a spell that would require complex somatic components, the crystals in the hands would vanish and they would then perform the necessary manipulations in lieu of the hand strapped to the shield. In this way you could enjoy the protection of having a shield while still retaining the ability to use magic as normal. I wanted it.

I spoke with Bardoc since I was going to need to borrow some coin, and he negotiated a small discount for us. Didn’t actually seem that hard (or maybe he just makes it look easy). I do get the impression that the drow are pretty well-disposed towards us despite the fact we slaughtered a portion of them. They clearly respect strength, and we demonstrated ours. Then we demonstrated mercy, which feels like it’s probably a curiosity at best in their society. Anyways the shield is amazing; I’ve been whipping it around for the last half hour, striking defensive poses and casting minor orisons while snarling into the mirror. I should probably go to bed.


	45. A Disagreement About Drow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Etrelan armed forces arrive, and they have a different idea of how the drow are to be dealt with than the party.

_Neth 20, 1707 (RW 11/2/2019):_

Spent most of today day loafing off as we expected the Etrelan Sun forces to show up. Morgrym and I finished 2 more pairs of boots over the last 2 days. As soon as he found out what they did he decided he wanted a pair too, and we hammered them out in a third the time for a bit less money thanks to our experience with the first set and a piece of random advice from a local. Khauldera had taken an interest in what we were doing, and hung around us for a while when she wasn’t discussing druid stuff with Zilveari. She also requested a pair, and again we knocked them out in a day. It feels good to be good at things. Kogu helped with some of the spellcraft work after he finished making personal healing wands for everyone, and I suspect he and Bardoc will be wanting boots as well. That’s fine; we’ve got a pretty good handle on the process at this point and it’s better to get new boots good and broken in before you plan to walk in them all day long.

Around 3 hours to Midnight I was laying in bed reading a manuscript the king appeared to have been working on called “Bound to My Leader”. It was a romance story told from the perspective of a young comely maiden (she actually uses that terminology herself, suggesting to me that this guy had last spoken to a woman…. Like…. never). She was sworn to the service of her king and so hopelessly in love. And he wanted her, but it was forbidden as she was just a common lass. And then the sex scenes. I’m not disgracing my journal with the worst of them but a few choice selections of general prose:

"Her breasts heaved like a stormy ocean, and her pointed nipples were like compass needles washed upon the shore." - add compasses to the list of things he’s never actually seen. Or possibly nipples.

"Thick dark lashes rested on her high cheek bones like fuzzy caterpillars floating in a bowl of sweet cream"

…. I can’t even with this shit. It should be a crime in itself for a monarch to be this out of touch with reality. This paints the drow invasion in a slightly better light actually, because if this sin against literature had been allowed to be completed and disseminated, Mitra may have just called off the whole “saving the world thing”. I joke. Obviously a lot of people died, but we have to make light of bad situations occasionally lest we go insane. Also if there was a legal body that oversaw novels, this would carry a 5 year minimum sentence. Anyways I can’t say for sure that I’d be all that much better of a novelist, but I have read a lot. Based on this disaster I feel like that puts me a step ahead of Dhur Kolgrav’s former monarch. You know, like I don’t know how to sail a ship, but if I see one run aground in harbor amidst a crowd of screaming fleeing people, I can tell you somebody fucked up. 

Well I may have just set a record for the MOST irrelevant tangent thus far in my personal journal.

I was saved from going further down the rabbit hole of horrible wank-fodder by the sound of horns blowing. Peering out a window I saw several companies of Etrelan soldiers entering the city streets in formation. I counted two groups of 24. I’d later learn there were two additional groups, as well as a small command and support contingent. My companions had heard the horns too, and we converged in the central room to help each other armor up just in case things turned ugly between them and the drow.

I didn’t want to look like I was completely geared up for a fight, so I left my shield in the house and instead used my new staff like a casual walking stick as we ventured out to meet the new arrivals. The leader was a Lieutenant General Elias Clarel. Clarel the Devoted, I would also later learn he was called. Usually you don’t earn a name like that without some sort of noteworthy deeds. I recognized the sigil on his armor as a variant of the Beneficent Sun. It identified him as a paladin of Mitra in a similar vein to Mikael Delphaus. What I know about these “oathbound paladins” as they’re sometimes called, is that they must treat their own words as binding. A statement of intent from them is as a proper oath sworn by anyone else. It’s a tight standard and makes them very careful with their words. It also makes them a natural choice for civil service and high ranking military leadership. Elias Clarel was sworn to the service of the King of Etrela.

Clarel didn’t seem to take us that seriously at first, and I don’t know if that was because he didn’t know what role we’d played here or if he simply didn’t care. Surely Morgrym’s drunken stumbling didn’t raise us any in his estimation, though Morgrym explained afterwards to me that he was playing this up so he could inconspicuously move over and advise the drow to get their people into the tower for safety. Balok stayed behind with us to serve as the drow representative. Clarel informed us that his orders, which he fully intended to carry out, were to take the drow to Sustra for trial. We all took a measure of umbrage with this, seeing as we had personally assured them that they would be spared so long as they offered no further injury. Clarel said that since we’d offered them and they’d accepted full citizenship, they were to be treated as rebels. I countered that there had been no rebellion since that agreement was made. Strovrick showed up and at least garnered a little more respect, but I refused to leave the conversation and eventually managed to convince him at the very least that we wouldn’t be spoken over in this. 

I learned that the orders to take the drow into custody came from Dhur Kolgrav’s governor in Sustra, the highest authority in the Gallancasters now that their king was dead. He was Strovrick’s contact in the capitol, which I pieced together at about the same rate as everyone else and thus was able to participate in the group glare directed his way. He swore this was not what he intended, and for what it was worth I believed him. Clarel told us this was all well and good but he still had orders which he was bound by both law and oath to follow. He didn’t understand why we would not want the drow to pay for their crimes. I replied that not only had we given our word (something he should understand, given the nature of his vows) on clemency, but they had already paid - in blood and by our own hands. As a slight side note on that point, I hadn’t actually realized at the time just how appropriate our actions down in the mine were. After the “Mitran uprising” as the drow had referred to it, the clergy and temple staff were specifically targeted for elimination. It was appropriate that we should in essence dedicate the drow we killed back to Mitra.

With Strovrick’s support, I convinced Clarel to hold at least for the night so I could speak to some people I knew in the capitol. He would follow whatever orders he received. I had every sense he was a good man and wanted to do right, and I will admit that given the circumstances, a good case could be made for “right” being that the drow be taken to trial. This situation just required some communication to resolve.

Back in our residence I spent a half-hour on a chair in the corner of the sitting room performing sendings to Hoshath Earthguard, the Bayraine Mountains ambassador to the Etrelan government. In the Grand Council of Etrela he holds one of the 15 high seats, same as the governor from Dhur Kolgrav. I’d never discussed his colleagues with him, but I figured it was a pretty safe bet on him being well-acquainted with the representative from the only other dwarven protectorate on the council. I apologized for complicating the matter with the citizenship bit. Apparently this would have been easier if they were classed as refugees but I’m not an expert in these areas; That’s why we roped Strovrick in in the first place. Hoshath felt it should be easy enough to resolve. While I was doing this I half-listened to my cohorts brainstorming ways they could get the drow out of the mountain, all of which would have either caused an armed conflict at worst and gotten us arrested at best. I told them I had something in the works. 

Thirty minutes after my last contact with Hoshath a scroll appeared in front of me bearing my house sigil. I grabbed it out of the air and read it. Bardoc seemed to be the only one that took note of the symbol, and even at that he didn’t really seem to fully know it. The scroll said there would be an emergency council session in the morning and I would receive further word then. 

The others have all gone to the Blackened Yew. I’m going to sleep.


End file.
